The Bowl Is Not Its Contents

It's been a VERY long time since I have posted anything....this mind being unwoven and unraveled leaves this one speechless and so enamored of what is only obvious as HERE and NOW...what use are words? As soon as I type, they become superfluous. Yet I have recently encountered some beautiful mind/bodies drifting through a talk by Rupert Spira and I did recommend my Blog, foolish human that I am. So let's see what might come of that....

Anything that does not point immediately to THIS that is the most VIVID and exceptionally present aliveness now appearing, is dead...the teaching that focuses on anything other than THIS cannot help you. You must investigate every moment for yourself, continually turning towards THAT which sees through your OWN EYES, what is it it that witnesses the words, the typing, the keyboard, the thinking, the screen? WHAT IS THIS? Can you sense the aliveness, here ever-present, breathing your body into being moment by moment?

The PLAY of life is secondary, but this ALIVE PRESENCE is primary. Put your awareness HERE and all is instantly resolved. The questions themselves dissolve into laughter. I see your questions arising, and those thoughts too are just clouds if you release them and let them go.

There are others WAY more articulate than I when it comes to this. I am better at addressing what arrives in the moment. The attempt to make an essay out of what THIS is dissolves the moment I attempt it!

Let me try once again....

As you sit with thoughts, feelings, beliefs, the swirl of past and future....what is TRUE about THIS moment NOW appearing? PAY ATTENTION to THIS....WHO is breathing the body? Who sits? Who thinks? From where do the thoughts and feelings arise? Put your attention there, like a scientist investigating the source of a theory. From where does life arise, in your own experience, here and now...LOOK!

I will not even attempt to describe this because what is here for this entity is not important to your own discovery. Why would I present something your mind would then use as a comparison? You must look for yourself and discover your nature, your unfolding essence. You are blossoming like a flower and missing the astounding display because you are looking through books of knowledge for a description instead of gazing in wonderment at your own unfolding beauty!

I do not mean look at your self in a mirror, I mean look at what is HERE in your own CONSCIOUSNESS, ever-present, alive, dynamic, multidimensional, complete, and all inclusive. Nothing is missing. YOU are PERFECT.

This perfection, forever HERE and NOW, will always exist as a container from which your sense of a personal "I" arises and comes into being, to play within this holographic 3D world. This is your world, your playground. Whatever you are dreaming, whatever limitations you entertain, whatever depths you wish to explore, the truth of this vast empty beauty remains unblemished. This freedom that you are remains immaculate.

I can feel your mind straining to put these words into context, to find a relationship between your current understanding from what you have read and witnessed in the past to these expressions now appearing as words....do not be confused by the words, they are ONLY pointers.

The mind has a certain function within which it is functionally literate, and that is as a compiler of data. It easily organizes all sensory experience, physical, mental, and emotional, and when needed recalls relative knowledge for review. One is constantly "looking" through one's files to compare current experience to the past in order to make sense of the in-streaming data. This function is perfect when you need to remember how to trouble shoot your computer or repair your bicycle, but it cannot help you KNOW your own FUNCTIONING as it occurs MOMENT to MOMENT. Only awareness, pointing at the crux of this vital, alive juncture of Beingness can come to know ITSELF. These words cannot help you at all. No explanation that anyone else offers can help you. YOU must turn towards the aliveness you sense at the edge of your own functioning as it interacts with the body's senses, this place where awareness intersects and interacts with moment by moment experience....HERE! NOW! Where else would it be!

DO NOT look into the world of THINKING, it is not there! Remember, thoughts are as much things as an apple or computer. They are programs, traces of the past arising as you look for information in the files of your internal database, what you seek cannot be find in a dead file! Just look at the millions of files you have accumulated, believing that the truth can be found by collecting old data! The living truth is ALIVE! It caresses and surrounds you, breathes you, moves you, births you, but does not ever limit you. It is there in the purring of your cat, in the creaking of the floor, in the thrum of the traffic....it is also in the turd floating in the toilet, in the vomit on the carpet, in the pain in your gut...everything, everywhere, forever.

 It is enough to send me to my knees a thousand times a day...

"What to do?" the mind asks. Each moment provides the answer. When the door bell rings, open the door and see who is there. When your spouse or child or co-worker speaks, listen. When someone asks for help, provide what you can. When you are undone, stay there and see what happens. Meet the moment and BE PRESENT as much as you can. Every day. This is your life. If you want to know the truth, if you REALLY want to know the truth, you will know it. It's that simple. If you think it's not, it won't be. You are that powerful. (SMILE).

Please forget EVERYTHING I just wrote and go find out for yourself. Thank you.

Shodoka - Song of Freedom

Here comes Mr. Natural, at ease as you please, walking the Talk by keeping quiet and letting his feet do the speaking, not running toward or away, just walking on.

The essence of confusion and wisdom is identical, this dusty skin bag is Light’s own body!

When we finally see how things really are, what words can we muster to describe nothing?

We all share the same original innocence, that’s why the truth is so true.

Thoughts and sensations change like the weather -- the night sky doesn’t complain when the stars come out.

When we eventually sober up a little, concepts like me and mine, self and other, past and future no longer have the juice to intoxicate us.

Even that’s a tale – really, nothing happens.

See for yourself! Once we open our eyes, everything is obvious.

In the dream, there’s plenty of drama. When we awaken, where does it all go?

Ups and downs, profit and loss – none of it can touch our immaculate peace.

We’ve all heard about polishing the mirror, but wait, look directly – there is no mirror. That’s what I call clean!

Who am I? If I’m truly neither this nor that, I’m this and that too.

Ask a corpse to explain itself! How can we find ourselves by searching outside ourselves?

Give up the struggle – relax.

Everything changes. When we resist, we suffer. What more do you need to know?

Recognizing and understanding the intimate relationship between what changes and what doesn’t is wisdom; actualizing it is love.

If you don’t agree, it doesn’t matter. Life clarifies itself.

Even being in opposition is not being in opposition. It’s all one thing! No, not even that! It’s easy, don’t worry!

We’re lived by mystery, empty and marvelous – don’t try to figure out perfection with mind, just rest in it, in harmony, surrendered, released of any complication.

Beyond fear and desire, just be.

Just BE.

The wise don’t linger in concepts, regrets, plans, or frowns.

In this way, they’re like children – clinging to nothing, rejecting nothing.

Since there is no other, they go on their way, unnoticed. Since everyone is inherently free, they’re inconspicuous in their absence.

Truth is simple and open to all. Those who understand may not be rich, but they’re happy.

What better gift to share than one’s own original beauty?

To earnest seekers, all self-images are like tattered old costumes that never quite fit. They appreciate the naked freedom of their own unselfconscious nature – they’ve got nothing to prove.

People say all sorts of things, but what’s prior to the first word? Let them say what they will – the extent of any reactivity is a good test of true equanimity.

To become a natural human being, don’t linger in any provisional state or get bogged down in beliefs.

This is actually the way of things – fluid, dynamic, non-dwelling.

Most get frightened when they contemplate their own impermanence, but a rare one now and then wakes up laughing in the midst of the dream.

Walking, sitting, speaking, silent – it’s all the same. Let the Wheel spin. When raining, rain, when shining, shine.

I don’t mind.

When the arrow hit home, there was nobody there – not even a forwarding address.

What care I for fame or disgrace – the arrow does the work.

In the grace of supreme beauty, radiance, I discovered my own.

It is not mine, this love is for everyone. All revolve in perfection within me. There is no coming or going, all are already home.

No need for a pat on the back, who’s patting whom?

“Who knew it would be like this?”

What more can one say?

The moon still shines, the wind still blows – this light belongs to no one.

I am flowing water, following a course carved out by the Great One. I do not seek the truth – the truth moves me.

Neither empty nor full, my form is the form of the Real.

When I drop this form, nothing has changed. What has no beginning has no end.

Clarity – all is limitless light, mirrored in spotless mind.

Listen closely, Holy Friends – clinging to anything is taking false refuge. Running away amounts to the same.

Non-dwelling is living without limits, without borders, without chains. Grasping at any experience, concept, strategy, or identity is nothing but an amnesiac’s fantasy games.

Some long for the marriage of heaven and earth, yet who has the peace of mind to contemplate the mutual penetration of the known and the unknown within the sphere of ordinary activity?

Natural and spontaneous, it proceeds without delay or impediment, granting the universe the power to exist. Past, present, and future are included in one glance, all emerges from one mysterious gesture, thrives, dissolves – ecstasy!

What says, "I am"? It's not mind, a teaching, or a word – right here, before the tongue moves!

No praise, no blame, eternally serene. No way to it, no way out of it. The only stubborn obstacle -- our pretense of self.

The only recourse: understanding and discarding that fiction.

See through that one, and all is understood. The one and the all are not different – only appearances blind us to what’s what.

Just keep walking – if anyone asks directions, point to the heart. Yours and theirs are not two. Looking elsewhere, it’s completely missed.

I hail from a long line of jugglers who toss batons of existence and non-existence in a teeming carnival of ineffable light.

Don't ask me what I know – I just work here. When I jettison everything I think I know, I just might become honest and genuine.

The Real is direct and immediate – that's why it's so easily missed. Still, why complain? That only compounds the befuddlement. Just be grateful -- without reason. Gratitude itself is reason enough!

Nothing is as it appears. Whatever appears, I am not. Nor am I any different.

If this is not comprehended, the dream goes on. If this is comprehended, the dream still goes on. Let's be clear – the dream never ends, only the dreamer disappears.

For years I tried to figure it out, with efforts mounted against the wind. Finally, I gave up the struggle. Now the breeze blows through me.

I relaxed and just let go.

A closed fist opened.

Spirit breathed out.

This breath is for all.

All are Bodhisattvas.

~ Bob O'Hearn
March 12, 2012

Trance-Formation to Transformation: Time to Wake Up

Please, do not be afraid. This is not meant to scare you, but to empower you. You are much greater than the ideas and concepts designed to enslave you. You have merely been dreaming. Wipe the sleep from your eyes, my friend, and BE FREE.

Trance-Formation from Max Igan on Vimeo.

Know Thyself: The Spiritual Basis of the Path of Self-Awareness

By Steve Beckow

 

In my view, the Creator designed and built us like a Babushka doll. Inside the physical body is another body, and then another, and then another. And by the same token, more essential than the I as ego (“ego” in Latin means “I”), is another deeper I, and then another, and then another.

I believe that it was intended that we reach God by knowing successively higher forms of our “I” or Self.

Certainly the masters of enlightenment agree. Sri Yukteswar Giri said that “the highest aim of religion is … Self-knowledge.” (1)

We speak of enlightenment as Self-Realization, the attainment of the Supreme Self. Moreover, the masters universally say that one cannot know God until one knows one’s self. Ibn Arabi for instance: “To know God is not an easy matter, until one becomes a knower of one’s self.” (2)

Or Al-Ghazzali: “Knowledge of self is the key to knowledge of God, according to the saying: ‘He who knows himself knows God.’” (3)

Or Krishnamurti: “Without first knowing yourself, how can you know that which is true? Illusion is inevitable without self-knowledge.” (4)

In fact our deepest, truest Self is God. How could it be otherwise? If all is God, how could we ourselves not also be God? St. Catherine of Genoa went so far as to say: “My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God Himself.” (5)

Sri Rajneesh tells us to “begin with yourself. Do not ask whether God exists; ask whether you exist.” (6)

As incredible as it may sound, even the Divine Mother (Prakiti) may disappear, but the Self does not disappear, as Sri Ramana Maharshi reminds us.

“It is the experience of everyone that even in the states of deep sleep, fainting, etc., when the entire  universe, moving and stationary, beginning with earth and ending with the unmanifested (Prakriti), disappear, he does not disappear.

“Therefore the state of pure being which is common to all and which is always experienced directly by everybody is one’s true nature.” (7)

To know our true nature, our true Self, it turns out, is the purpose of life. When we know ourself truly and deeply we know God, because the Self and God are one. When we know ourself deeply, we solve the puzzle of life and fulfill the purpose of life – that God should meet God. 

“To attain enlightenment,” the Buddha reminds us, “without seeing your nature is impossible.” (8) And, upon knowing the true Self or our true nature, all that we could wish for is attained, as Sri Ramana reminds us: “When one’s true nature is known, then there is Being without beginning and end; It is unbroken Awareness-Bliss.” (9) 

I think that, when Jesus said ” I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” (10) he was pointing not to Jesus but to the Self, the I, or the “I am.” Certainly no one comes to the Father, or the Supreme Self, except by first knowing the individuated Self at progressively deeper levels. 

All of Jesus’s parables of the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price, the great fish, and the mustard seed are about how knowledge of the Self becomes knowledge of the All-Self. Here is one parable: 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” (11) 

Put in other words, what Jesus is describing is how the aspirant sees a discrete light – the Self – in a moment of awareness called “spiritual awakening” by Hindus and “stream-entering” by Buddhists. This is what is meant by finding the treasure in the field, the field being the body. This occurs when the kundalini reaches the fourth chakra. 

If the aspirant then meditates on that light, giving up all desires but to realize it fully (“selling all he hath”), then eventually that light becomes the light of the All-Self transcending all creation (the aspirant has “bought the field”). This occurs when the kundalini passes the seventh chakra and returns again to the spiritual heart or Hridayam. It is called sahaja samadhi. It is a permanent heart opening and brings all gifts. 

Vedantic masters say that “you must realize absolutely that the Atman [the Self] is Brahman [the All-Self].”

(12) Here is that moment described in the Upanishads: “I am that Self! I am life immortal! I overcome the world — I who am endowed with golden effulgence! Those who know me achieve Reality.”

(13) 

And here is Jan Ruusbroec referring to that same process in the Christian tradition: 

“In this darkness an incomprehensible light is born and shines forth; this is the Son of God in whom a person becomes able to see and contemplate eternal life.” (14)

 “It is Christ [the Son, the Self, the Atman], the light of truth, who says, ‘See,’ and it is through him that we are able to see, for he is the light of the Father [the All-Self, Brahman], without which there is no light in heaven or on earth.” (15) 

And where is this Self to be found? Within, which is why Jesus would say: “The kingdom of Heaven is within you.” (16) The searchlight of awareness is to be gradually turned within, deeper and deeper and deeper. 

These processes are what is being referred to when one says that one must know the Self first before he can know God. Meditation directed inward is an intensive spiritual practice. The path of self-awareness might be seen as what the meditator does when he or she rises up off their cushion and re-enters everyday life. It is an everyday practice of self-observation, responsibility, and acceptance. 

So therefore it’s not narcissism or egocentricity to want to know the Self. It isn’t a trivial activity to observe the self and its ways. It isn’t frivolous. God has set up the round of life so that we can and must know our selves; doing so fulfills the purpose of life. There can be nothing more momentous, mystical, and miraculous than absolutely knowing one’s Self. 

 It is not service to self to know the Self. It is the most profound contribution to life because all of life is arranged, designed, set up to lead to this culmination of knowing the one Self, at which time God meets God, satisfying the commandment at the basis of all life. 

So “Know Thyself” is the soundest of advice and the most sacred of duties. The path of self-awareness is specifically designed to allow us to know ourselves in this mystical and yet most practical way. 

Footnotes 

(1) Sri Yukteswar Giri, The Holy Science. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1984, 6. 

(2) Muhyidden Ibn Arabi, Kernel of the Kernel. trans. Ismail Hakki Bursevi. Sherborne: Beshara, n.d., 3. 

(3) Al-Ghazzali, The Alchemy of Happiness. trans. Claud Field. Lahore: ASHRAF, 1971; c1964 19. 

(4) J. Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living. First Series. Bombay, etc.: B.I. Publications, 1972; c1974, 1, 20. 

(5) St Catherine of Genoa in Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy. New York, etc.: Harper and Row, 1970; c1944, 11. 

(6) Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I am the Gate. The Meaning of Initiation and Discipleship. New York, etc.: Harper Colophon, 1977; c1975, 80. 

(7) Sri Ramana Maharshi, Spiritual Instruction of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Eighth Edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1974, Chapter 4, Question 18. 

(8) Bodhidharma in Pine, Red, trans., The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. Port Townsend, WA, Empty Bowl, 1987, 9. 

(9) Ramana Maharshi in Anon., Who Am I? The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Sarasota, FL: Ramana Publications, 1990, 24-5. 

(10) John 14:6. 

(11) Matthew 13:44 

(12) Shankara in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher lsherwood, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1975; c1947, 69. 

(13) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 59. 

(14) John Ruusbroec in James A. Wiseman, John Ruusbroec. The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works. New York, etc.: Paulist Press, 1985, 22. 

(15) John Ruusbroec in JR, 74. 

(16) John 8: 32.

Click HERE to go to Steve's Blog.

CLARITY

By Nathan Gill

"...That was it! Suddenly it was absolutely clear to me that these experiences - I call them transcendental events or experiences - actually have nothing to do with clarity. A transcendental experience can last a few seconds or ten years or maybe even the rest of your life, but a transcendental experience is just that. An experience. Many people have had these experiences and then the experience is gone and often the person is left with a desire for more of it. They think they have been given a taste of 'enlightenment' , when all that has happened is that they have had a transcendental experience. Walking down the street is an experience, but it's an ordinary one so you don't go looking for more of it.

The confusion was gone. I knew what I am without any doubt and it was obvious that I already had been that all my life. I no longer required any transcendental experience to prove it to me.

The whole of my 'spiritual' search had been added on to what I already am and I also understood why people are confused around this whole issue. Why they confuse 'spirituality' with clarity. This recognition of my true nature was not associated with any transcendental event or experience. It was clear that a transcendental experience of any kind is easily confusing if it occurs before you recognize with clarity your nature as Consciousness.

It is obvious that the transcendental event that was experienced had nothing to do with clarity of recognition. The occurrence of the event brought my confusion to a head and allowed me to see clearly how I had been subtly waiting for an event as permission to be what I already am.

I see now that no transcendental event has any significance in the light of the plain, ordinary, everyday clarity of what you really are."

Read the entire book HERE.

Shifting Paradigms

The wisdom and understanding of our own divine essence is like a beacon that invites us inward toward ever deeper connection with all around us. Yet rather than look within, most in this world have long preferred to look outward for divine wisdom, thus sustaining a dependence upon a vast hierarchy that stretches between the individual and the Divine. 

 

In all our wanderings away from the Divine, humankind has virtually eliminated its most compelling features through misapplication of the logical mind, and through persistent belief in a language of limitation arising out of the controlling mechanisms of the hierarchical paradigm. Within this paradigm, language has often been used by those who desire to exert control to impose a form of limitation. Though in relative terms their words may appear liberating and empowering, those in power in the hierarchy have often used language as an instrument of entrapment and tyranny. 

At the other end of the spectrum, some of the noblest efforts of humanity in the usage of language have resulted in the Divine being gradually illuminated by the great spiritual visionaries of our world. Yet even the images portrayed by the language of these inspiring leaders cannot help but dilute the pure expression of the most compelling features of the Divine.

The Divine dances outside of the constructs of any language. It is complete within itself, and has a singular purpose of expressing the collective potential of all life in the universe. It is the archetype of perfection. It is the standard bearer of each soul's innate design and ultimate destiny. The essence of the Divine is far beyond mental conception, yet humanity's tendency is to resort to the limiting language of the hierarchical paradigm to define and understand it.

To read more CLICK HERE

The Beginning is Near

Change is afoot. Can't go under it. Can't go over it. Can't go around it. Gotta go THROUGH IT.

Pace yourself. Breathe. Smile. It's all good.

Trees are Happy for No Reason

My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight.

~ Eudora Welty

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Fear is the cheapest room in the house.

I would like to see you living

In better conditions.

~ Hafiz

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Don't flail about like a man wearing a blindfold.

Believe me, He's in here.

Come in and see for yourself.

You'll stop hunting for Him all over.

~ Lalla (14th Century)

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Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.

~ Joseph Campbell

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In meditating, meditate on your own divinity. The goal of life is to be a vehicle for something higher. Keep your eyes up there between the world of opposites watching your 'play' in the world. Let the world be as it is and learn to rock with the waves.

~ Joseph Campbell

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Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.

~ Osho

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This silence, this moment, every moment, if it's genuinely inside

you, brings what you need.

There's nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in

myself did I come into this beauty.

Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, 'Be more

silent.'

Die and be quiet.

Quietness is the surest sign that you've died.

Your old life was a frantic running from silence.

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.

~ Rumi

Charles Eisenstein: Sacred Economics

Chapter 21

http://bit.ly/zgLqNx

The following is the twenty-second installment from
Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of others.” -Albert Einstein

Trusting Gratitude

The question comes up again and again: How can I share my gifts in today’s money economy and still make a living? Some people who ask this question are artists, healers, or activists who despair of finding a way to “get paid for” what they do. Others have a successful business or profession but have begun to feel that something is amiss with the way they charge for their services.

Indeed, to charge a fee for service, or even for material goods, violates the spirit of the Gift. When we shift into gift mentality, we treat our creations as gifts to other people or to the world. It is contrary to the nature of a gift to specify, in advance, a return gift, for then it is no longer giving but rather bartering, selling. Furthermore, many people, particularly artists, healers, and musicians, see their work as sacred, inspired by a divine source and bearing infinite value. To assign it a price feels like a devaluation, a sacrilege. But surely the artist deserves to be compensated for his work, right?

The idea behind the word “compensation” is that you have, by working, made a sacrifice of your time. You have spent it doing work when you could have instead spent it on something you want to do. Another context in which we use the word is lawsuits, for example when someone seeks compensation for an injury, for pain and suffering.

In an economy that deserves the adjective “sacred,” work will no longer be an injury to one’s time or life; it will no longer be a matter of pain and suffering. A sacred economy recognizes that human beings desire to work: they desire to apply their life energy toward the expression of their gifts. There is no room in this conception for “compensation.” Work is a joy, a cause for gratitude. At its best, it is beyond price.

To keep reading, Click Here

Be Yourself.

"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

~ Oscar Wilde

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When anybody laughs, he has no mind, no thought, no problem, no suffering.

~ Papaji

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You impose limits on your true nature of infinite being. Then you get displeased to be only a limited creature. Then you begin spiritual practices to transcend these non-existing limits. But if your practice itself implies the existence of these limits, how could they allow you to transcend them.

~ Ramana Maharshi

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To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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"Who cares if you're enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?"

~ Byron Katie

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Be still. It takes no effort to be still; it is utterly simple. When your mind is still, you have no name, you have no past, you have no relationships, you have no country, you have no spiritual attainment, you have no lack of spiritual attainment. There is just the presence of beingness with itself.

~ Gangaji

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For a day,

Just for one day,

Talk about that

Which disturbs no one...

And bring some peace

Into your beautiful eyes.

~ Hafiz

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There is no profound knowledge. There are no good words. Everything you've been told is a lie. The only truth that exists is your self, but who is the self? The self is you, just the way you are. The mistake most people make is they want to change themselves. How can you change yourself? You think you've got problems, or you think you've got a bad mind, or you think something is wrong and you want to change that. Those things don't exist. There is nothing to change. That's what I mean when I say, "Be yourself, just the way you are." Yourself, just the way you are, spontaneous, live in the now, has no time to worry or think. When you are yourself you are God, you are consciousness, you are absolute reality. You are always yourself. You never were anyone else. You never were anything else. Your nature is divine. You are not what you appear to be. The only thing to remove is the appearance, or the belief in the appearance, for the appearance is false.

~ Robert Adams

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Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed.

Away with your dualism, your likes and dislikes.

Every single thing is just the One Mind.

When you have perceived this,

you will have mounted the Chariot of the Buddhas.

~ Huang Po

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"I can walk on the clouds!" says a child.

But if she reached the clouds,

she would find nowhere to place her foot.

Likewise, if one does not examine thoughts,

they present a solid appearance;

but if one examines them,

there is nothing there.

That is what is called

being at the same time

empty and apparent.

Emptiness of mind

is not a nothingness,

nor a state of torpor,

for it possesses by its very nature

a luminous faculty of knowledge

which is called Awareness.

These two aspects,

emptiness and Awareness,

cannot be separated.

They are essentially one,

like the surface of the mirror

and the image which is reflected in it."

~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche