Some Favourite Statements from the Masters:

Добавлено: Вт Авг 26, 2008 7:19 am

Quotations from the Masters

Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj

One who has got the purest knowledge of the `Truth' thinks that being `bound and free' is all a joke.
Where Prakriti (Illusion) moves away or ends with the name and form, there all the words become silent.
Then how can any thing like `liberation' remain there?
What is the meaning of "liberated". That is only a way, in which people talk.
All the bondage is for him, who says he is the body.
One who is a Dnyani (Realised) is free from the sense of `I'.
For him `bound and liberated' is only a delusion.

`Bound' and `liberated' are only concepts expressed.

A concept is never true. One who has understood Maya (Illusion) is free from all fear.

The one who says, "I will practise yoga after I become Brahman- then I will do something" is like the one going in search of water in a mirage.

It means that such people are simply going backward and forward in a mirage. One who considers mirage as true, gets bound by it.

For the man who is awake, the dream disappears. In the same way Dnyani finds this mirage which is in the form of Illusion disappear.

So far as one's own nature is concerned, the relationship of the body itself is untrue.

"Trying to contemplate on one who admits of no contemplation," is not possible.

As far as Brahman is concerned, no contemplation is possible.

But man has a habit of seeing and contemplating something.

If one cannot see or think about Self, then what can one do? If one contemplates on a thing then that thing can be known.

By the nature of self, even if you want to pull it down to your mind, it can not come to the mind also.
It is also not possible to discard the nature of `Knowingness'.

It cannot be understood through the senses also. Then what can one do?

The Truth (Brahman) is beyond concept.

When one starts meditating the trinity (of seer, seen and process of seeing) is produced.

All other objects and senses are alien to us but because we ourselves are the Truth, contemplation on ourself is not possible.

If contemplation is given up, great doubts overpower us.

But if one thinks and deliberates upon what is everlasting and what is transient, what is self and what is not self, the Truth is revealed.

We are not any of the things that exist in this world. We are also not the body.

The Vedas, the scriptures, the moon, the sun -- we are none of these. We must sincerely find out who we are.

There is nothing like non-self- but it is talked of as non-self, for understanding it.

Unless the `I' dies off Heaven can not be seen.

Parabrahmam is non-dualistic- means we ourselves are `That'.

Therefore we have to be `That' in order to know `That'.

This does not require any other means- or an instrument.
If we have to experience some other object, we have to see it. But because we are `That', we are by nature `That alone'.

If we give up the consciousness of all the rest, then we are as we are.

We have never forgotten our nature. So it is not necessary to remember it.

Only if it is forgotten, then it has to be remembered. Therefore, our Nature is beyond remembering and forgetting.

(From Amrut Laya)[/b]

Добавлено: Вт Авг 26, 2008 7:21 am

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj -

Start with the body.
From the body you get the knowledge of `I am'.

In this process you become more and more subtle.

When you are in a position to witness the knowledge `I am', you have reached the highest.

In this way you must try to understand, and the seeds of knowledge will sprout in you.

When you come to the end of material world-knowledge, at that stage you transcend the observer and the observed.

That means that you are in a true state of being-ness.
Thereafter, you enter the state of transcending being-ness, where the identities of the observer and observed disappear.

Suppose somebody abuses you and you find out who it is. Is it the body? It is not the body.

Then what could it be? Finally you come to the conclusion that it is spontaneously happening out of whatever that body is.

You will not attribute it to any individual. When your individuality is dissolved, you will not see individuals anywhere, it is just a functioning in consciousness.

If it clicks in you, it is very easy to understand. If it does not, it is most difficult. It is very profound and very simple, if understood right. What I am saying is not the general run of common spiritual knowledge.

When you reach a state when body is transcended, mind is transcended and consciousness is also transcended;
from then on all is merely happening out of consciousness, which is the outcome of the body, and there is no authority or doer-ship.

When a sound is emanating out of a body, it is not that somebody is talking, it is just words emanating, just happening, not doing.

The Absolute alone prevails.

There is nothing but the Absolute.

The un-manifest manifested itself, that manifest state is Guru and it is universal. Who is the one who recognizes this body-mind?

This `I Am-ness' which recognizes the body-mind is without name and form, it is already there.

(From Consciousness and the Absolute)

Добавлено: Вт Авг 26, 2008 7:29 am

- Nisargadatta Maharaj -

The sweetness is the nature of sugar;
but that sweetness is there only so long as the sugar is present. Once the sugar has been consumed or thrown away, there is no more sweetness. So this knowledge "I am," this consciousness, this feeling or sense of Being, is the quintessence of the body. And if that body essence is gone, this feeling, the sense of Being, will also have gone. This sense of Being cannot remeain without the body, just as sweetness cannot remain without the material, which is sugar.

Visitor: What remains then?

Maharaj: What remains is the Original, which is unconditioned, without attributes, and without identity: that on which this temporary state of the consciousness and the three states and the three gunas have come and gone. It is called Parabrahman, the Absolute.

Because of your existence, because you know that you are, you know also that the world is. So this consciousness, because of which you experience the world, is not unimportant; in fact, it is very important.

So why not stabilize there? Meditate on that consciousness itself, and find out how this "I-am-ness" has appeared. What was its cause? And from what did this consciousness develop? Try to find out, go right to the source!

There are many persons who have a great attachment to their own individuality. They want first and foremost to remain as an individual and then search, for they are not prepared to lose that individuality. While retaining their identity, they want to find out what is the truth.

But in this process, you must get rid of the identity itself. If you really find out what you are, you will see that you are not an individual, you are not a person, you are not a body. And people who cling to their body identity are not fit for this knowledge.

Who is there to be conscious of unconsciousness? As long as the window is open, there is sunlight in the room. With the windows shut, the sun remains, but does it see the darkness in the room? Is there anything like darkness to the sun? There is no such thing as unconsciousness, for unconsciousness is not experienceable.

Even faith in God is only a stage on the way. Ultimately, you abandon all, for you come to something so simple that there are no words to express it.
As long as one is conscious, there will be pain and pleasure. You cannot fight pain and pleasure on the level of consciousness.

To go beyond them, you must go beyond consciousness, which is possible only when you look at consciousness as something that happens to you, and not in you, as something external, alien, superimposed. Then, suddenly you are free of consciousness, really alone, with nothing to intrude. And that is your true state. Consciousness is an itching rash that makes you scratch. Of course, you cannot step out of consciousness, for the very stepping out is in consciousness.

But if you learn to look at your consciousness as a sort of fever, personal and private, in which you are enclosed like a chick in its shell, out of this very attitude will come the crisis which will break the
shell.

Discontinuity is the law when you deal with the concrete. The continuous cannot be experienced, for it has no borders. Consciousness implies alterations, change following change, when one thing or state comes to an end and another begins; that which has no borderline cannot be experienced in the common meaning of the word.

One can only be it, without knowing, but one can know what it is not. It is definitely not the entire content of consciousness which is always on the move. To realize the immovable means to become immovable. I am talking of immovability, not of immobility. You become immovable in righteousness. You become a power which gets all things right. It may or may not imply intense outward activity, but the mind remains deep and quiet. ...

Добавлено: Вт Авг 26, 2008 7:31 am

... Is there a world outside your knowledge? Can you go beyond what you know? You may postulate a world beyond the mind, but it will remain a concept, unproved and unprovable.

Your experience is your proof, and it is valid for you only. Who else can have your experience, when the other person is only as real as he appears in your experience?

In reality nothing happens, there is no past nor future; all appears and nothing is.

Your own little body too is full of mysteries and dangers, yet you are not afraid of it, for you take it as your own. What you do not know is that the entire universe is your body, and you need not be afraid of it. You may say you have two bodies: the personal and the universal.

The personal comes and goes, the universal is always with you. The entire creation is your universal body. You are so blinded by what is personal, that you do not see the universal.

This blindness will not end by itself - it must be undone skilfully and deliberately. When all illusions are understood and abandoned, you reach the error-free and perfect state in which all distinctions between the personal and the universal are no more.

You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself. To you, you get born and die, while to me the world appears and disappears. Our world is real, but your view of it is not.

There is no wall between us, except the one built by you. There is nothing wrong with the senses, it is your imagination that misleads you. It covers up the world as it is with what you imagine it to be - something existing independently of you and yet closely following your inherited or acquired patterns.

This must be well grasped: the world hangs on the thread of consciousness. No consciousness, no world.

Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your own imagination! However is the picture, beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by it.

Realize that there is nobody to force it on you, that it is due to the habit of taking the imaginary to be real. See the imaginary as imaginary and be free of fear.

What begins and ends is mere appearance. The world can be said to appear, but not to be. The appearance may last very long on some scale of time, and very short on another, but ultimately it comes to the same. Whatever is time-bound is momentary and has no reality.

There can be no continuity in existence. Continuity implies identity in past, present and future. No such identity is possible, for the very means of identification fluctuate and change. Continuity, permanency, these are illusions created by memory, mere mental projections of a pattern where no pattern can be.

Time is in the mind, space is in the mind. In reality time and space exist in you; you do not exist in them. They are modes of perception, but they are not the only ones.

Time and space are like words written on paper; the paper is real, the words merely a convention. All existence is imaginary.
Time is endless, though limited, eternity is in the split moment of the now. We miss it because the mind is ever shuttling between the past and the future. It will not stop to focus the now. It can be done with comparative ease, if interest is aroused.

"I am" is an ever present fact, while "I am created" is an idea. Neither God nor the universe have come to tell you that they have created you. The mind, obsessed by the idea of causality, invents creation and then wonders "who is the creator?"

The mind itself is the creator. Even this is not quite true, for the created and its creator are one. The mind and the world are not separate. Do understand that what you think to be the world is your own mind. All space and time are in the mind.

There is only imagination. It has absorbed you so completely that you just cannot grasp how far from reality you have wandered. No doubt imagination is richly creative.

Universe upon universe are built on it. Yet they are all in space and time, past and future, which just don't exist.

It is you who are in movement and not time. Stop moving and time will cease. Past and future will merge in the eternal now.

* * *

Добавлено: Вт Авг 26, 2008 7:53 am

When the objective knowledge comes to an end, the Seer does not survive as a Seer. At that moment, the pride of the `I' (ego) just melts away.

As long as objects are taken to truly exist, until then only the seer remains. As the being is conceptual, so also is the seer. If you call this city `Bombay', it appears as Bombay; if you call it earth, it will appear as earth.

It all depends upon the seer's concept.

If you call an object a chair, it is a chair; if you call it wood, it is wood. If you call the all as Brahman, then the all is Brahman. If you call it the world, it is the world. All objects depend on the concept of the seer. But Brahman is beyond concept and no concept can conceive it.

Shri Siddharameshwar Maharaj :

http://nondualite.free.fr/c_sidharam.htm