Monday 20 March 2023

The entire manifested universe exists only in consciousness

 


● The entire manifested universe exists only in consciousness. 
● As an appearance in consciousness, the world is the totality of the known in the potential of the unknown. 
● 'Me', 'you' and 'he' are only appearances in consciousness.


Tuesday 3 January 2023

Absolute perfection is here and now


All you get by waiting is more waiting. Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj


Sunday 4 December 2022

What if I die without getting realized?


When you talk about an ignorant person and a Jnani and the need for an ignorant person to become a Jnani, do you not assume that there is an independent and autonomous individual, capable of exercising personal volition according to his choice and decision?

In the process whereby the phenomenal universe comes into manifestation, is there a provision for such independent entities?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  • Realization is from the illusion of a person.
  • A "realized person" is a paradox.
  • There is no one to realize.


Saturday 3 December 2022

People mistake bliss for self-realisation

 

Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your self-realisation.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj


People mistake bliss for self-realisation.
Bliss is connected to serotonin in the brain. It comes and goes.


Thursday 1 December 2022

A character in a movie, a dreamed pseudo-entity

Who is thinking in terms of self-improvement? Surely, an appearance in consciousness, a character in a movie, a dreamed pseudo-entity considering itself subject to the workings of Karma.  • Realizing one's true nature requires no phenomenal effort. • What efforts can a shadow make to know its substance?  • Who is to do Sadhana and for what purpose?   • You are so attached to the show that you forget that you are not the character in the cinema, but its witness. • “Reincarnation exists as long as I am not realized” is like saying “The characters in the cinema are true as long as I don’t realize that it is a cinema.” • The cinema is an appearance whether you realize it or not. The entire world is an appearance to you, whether you realize it or not. • Karma and reincarnation are just false religious concepts, whether you are realized or not realized. • Can any amount of ‘sadhana’ done by the imaginary character in a cinema help to realize its true nature? How can a non-existent entity realize itself? How can a concept realize itself? • Then what is the solution? – Stop conceptualizing and spontaneously and directly apperceive things as they are. All knowledge is conceptual, therefore, untrue.

Who is thinking in terms of self-improvement? Surely, an appearance in consciousness, a character in a movie, a dreamed pseudo-entity considering itself subject to the workings of Karma.
• Realizing one's true nature requires no phenomenal effort.
• What efforts can a shadow make to know its substance?
• Who is to do Sadhana and for what purpose?
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Pointers from N.M.


• You are so attached to the show that you forget that you are not the character in the cinema, but its witness.
• “Reincarnation exists as long as I am not realized” is like saying “The characters in the cinema are true as long as I don’t realize that it is a cinema.”
• The cinema is an appearance whether you realize it or not. The entire world is an appearance to you, whether you realize it or not.
• Karma and reincarnation are just false religious concepts, whether you are realized or not realized.
• Can any amount of ‘sadhana’ done by the imaginary character in a cinema help to realize its true nature? How can a non-existent entity realize itself? How can a concept realize itself?
• Then what is the solution? – Stop conceptualizing and spontaneously and directly apperceive things as they are. All knowledge is conceptual, therefore, untrue.

Thursday 17 November 2022

Man of cluttered intellect - Ashtavakra Gita

 

A man of open intuition may realize Self upon hearing a casual instruction, while a man of cluttered intellect inquires bewildered for a lifetime.

यथातथोपदेशेन कृतार्थः सत्त्वबुद्धिमान् ।
आजीवमपि जिज्ञासुः परस्तत्र विमुह्यति ॥

Ashtavakra Gita


Sunday 13 November 2022

The self-styled Gurus obstruct


The self-styled Gurus talk of ripeness and effort, of merits and achievements, of destiny and grace. All these are mere mental formations, projections of an addicted mind. Instead of helping, they obstruct.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj

All ideas of ripeness and effort, merits and achievements, progress and goal, destiny and grace, rebirth and karma, are ignorant religious concepts based on the false notion of a non-existent entity. Such an entity does not exist.

Monday 7 November 2022

It is all imagination - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

Through the film of your mind you project a world and also a God to give it cause and purpose. It is all imagination. Step out of it.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Wednesday 12 October 2022

Yogis who preach either effort - Ashtavakra Gita


कर्मनैष्कर्म्यनिर्बन्धभावा देहस्थयोगिनः ।
संयोगायोगविरहादहमासे यथासुखम् ॥

Yogis who preach either effort or non-effort are still attached to the body.
I neither dissociate nor associate with any of that and am happy.

Ashtavakra Gita

Monday 10 October 2022

There is no such thing as enlightenment

 

There is no ‘me’ or ‘you’ to seek enlightenment. Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together. Indeed, there is no such thing as ‘enlightenment’. The apperception of this fact is itself enlightenment!

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Friday 9 September 2022

The imperceptible being

 

Each one of us, as a phenomenon, is merely an appearance in the consciousness of those who perceive us, and, therefore, what we appear to be is a phenomenon — temporal, finite and perceptible to the senses; whereas what we are, what we have always been and what we shall always be, without name and form, is the noumenon — timeless, spaceless, imperceptible being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Friday 26 August 2022

Where is the person? - Ashtavakra Gita

 ● Abide in awareness with no illusion of person. You will be instantly free and at peace. ● Meditate on this: “I am Awareness alone. Unity itself.” Give up the idea that you are separate, a person, that there is within and without.  ● You have long been bound, thinking, “I am a person.” Let the knowledge, “I am Awareness alone,” be the sword that frees you.  ● I am not the body. I do not have a body. I am Awareness, not a person.  ● Realize Self in All and All in Self. Be free of personal identity and the sense of “mine.” Be happy.  ● In you who are One - immaculate, still Awareness - from where can birth, action, or a separate person arise?  ● Your ignorance alone creates the universe. In reality One alone exists. There is no person or god other than You.  ● He who claims liberation as his own, as an attainment of a person, is neither enlightened nor a seeker. He suffers his own misery.  ● Where is the doer or enjoyer? Where is the origin or end of thought? Where is direct or reflected knowledge? There is no person here.  ● Where is illusion? Where is existence? Where is attachment or non-attachment? Where is person? Where is God? I am Awareness.   Ashtavakra Gita


Tuesday 28 June 2022

Neither do I know, nor do I do not know - Kenopanishad

 

I do not think that I know this well;
nor do I think that I do not know this.
He among us who knows that –
“Neither do I know, nor do I do not know”
-    perceives That well.

Kenopanishad

नाहं मन्ये सुवेदेति नो न वेदेति वेद च ।
यो नस्तद्वेद तद्वेद नो न वेदेति वेद च ॥


Wednesday 15 June 2022

Yoga means union, joining. What have you re-united, re-joined?

 

Yoga means union, joining. What have you re-united, re-joined? Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.
~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. I am That. Ch.34

All the concepts of religions including traditional vedanta - like karma, reincarnation, progress, do this, don't do this, etc., - are all based on the presupposition of a pseudo-entity which seeks enlightenment. Such an entity does not exist. Anything that prescribes a definite set of dos and don'ts which guarantees your upliftment, is religion, not nonduality. It is as simple as imagining a dragon in your backyard. The only way out is to stop imagining. You will never achieve anything by learning more about how the dragon moves.


Tuesday 17 May 2022

Self-inquiry is a good beginning, however, it does not produce Self-realisation

 

Question: I have, as advised by you, retired to a solitary place where I am engaged in investigating the Self. Even so, I have diverse visions and experiences. Thinking that the constant Self-awareness is dimmed by the uncalled-for interference of mental activities, I forcibly repressed my thoughts and remained calm. Darkness superseded, light appeared, sleep supervened and finally unique bliss overpowered me for a little while. Is this the Self, or something different? Please analyse these experiences of mine and tell me, so that I may clearly understand them.

Answer: Listen to me, closely. What you have now done to restrain thoughts with the mind turned inward (vichara) is a good beginning and praised by the worthy as the best way. Without it, no one has ever been successful anywhere. However, it does not produce Self-realisation, for the Self remains realised at all times. If a product, it cannot be the Self. For, how can the Self be got anew?  So then, the Self is never gained. Gain is of something which is not already possessed. Is there any moment when the Self is not the Self? Neither is control of mind used to gain it.

I shall give you some examples:

Just as things unseen in darkness are found on its removal by means of a lamp, and are therefore said to be recovered from oblivion. Just as a confused man forgets his purse, but remembers and locates it on keeping his mind unruffled and steady, yet still says that he has gained the lost purse, though the steadying of his mind did not produce it. So also the control of your mind is not the cause of your Self-realisation; though the Self is always there, it is not recognised by you even with a controlled mind because you are not conversant with it. Just as a yokel unacquainted with the system cannot understand the dazzling lights of the royal audience-chamber at night and so ignores its magnificence at first sight, so it is that you miss the Self.

Attend dear! Blank darkness was visible after you controlled your thoughts. In the short interval before its appearance and after the control of mind, there remains a state free from the effort to control and the perception of darkness. Always remember that state as the one of perfect and transcendental happiness. All are deceived in that state because their minds are accustomed to be turned outward. Though people may be learned, skilful and keen, still they search and search, only to be thwarted and they do not abide in that holy state. They grieve day and night, without knowing this state. Mere theoretical knowledge of sculpture can never make a man a sculptor. Though he will be a pandit well-grounded in the theory and the discussion of the philosophy of the Self, he cannot realise the Self because it is not realisable but already realised.

Realisation is not attained by going far, but only by staying still; not by thought, but by cessation of thought. Effort towards Realisation is like the attempt to stamp with one’s foot on the shadow cast by one’s head. Effort will always make it recede. Just as an infant try to take hold of his own reflection being unaware of the mirror, so also common people are taken in by their mental reflections in the mirror of the pure, luminous Self and are not aware of the mirror, because they have no acquaintance with the Self. Although people understand space, they are not aware of it because they are taken up by the objects in space. They understand the universe in space but have no regard for space itself. Similarly, it is with them in regard to the Self.

- The teachings of Sage Dattatreya.
Tripura Rahasya.
Excerpt from the Chapter IX.


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About Nisargadatta Maharaj

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher of Advaita (Nondualism), and a Guru, belonging to the Navnath Sampradaya. Sri Nisargadatta, with his direct and minimalistic explanation of non-dualism, is considered the most famous teacher of Advaita since Ramana Maharshi. In 1973, the publication of his most famous and widely-translated book, "I AM THAT", an English translation of his talks in Marathi by Maurice Frydman, brought him worldwide recognition and followers.

According to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, the purpose of spirituality is simply to know who you are. His discussions are not for academic scholars. He is a rebellious spirit, abrupt in his style of discussion, provocative, and immensely profound, cutting to the core and wasting little effort on inessentials. He talked about the 'direct way' of knowing the Final Reality, in which one becomes aware of one's original nature through mental discrimination, breaking the mind's false identification with the ego, knowing that "You are already That".

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