Om! Diserelessness is freedom ~ Atman Nityananda

Living unconsciously in this material dimension, one thing is certain, suffering!

Living  unconsciously means living in the surface of our existence, identified with body, mind and senses and unaware of our true Self!

And what is the cause of unconscious living and identification with body, mind and senses?   The ego!

And what is the ego? Lust and desire, (for sex, sensory pleasures, money, power, fame, name, possessions, comfort). Egoism or selfishness is created by lust and desire. Desire and selfishness are identical.

True freedom  is to be free from lust and desire. Desirelessness is freedom!

Quotes about desire:

All suffering is born of desire. Pleasure depends on things, happiness does not”
~ Nisargadatta

“Desire is the root cause of all evil actions. If desire is removed, then the divine power manifests in its full glory and one enjoys peace, bliss, light and freedom.”
~ Swami Sivananda

“The cause of pain is pleasure. The cause of death is love for sensual life. Give up all sensual pleasures, if you do not want pain. Give up sensual life, if you do not want death.”
~ Swami Sivananda

Q: Why should pleasure be the seed of pain?

Nisargadatta: Because for the sake of pleasure you are committing many sins. And the fruits of sin are suffering and death.
~ Nisargadatta

CH. II 62.63 When a man thinks of the objects, attachment to them arises; from attachment desire is born; from desire anger arises. From anger comes delusion; from delusion the loss of memory; from loss of memory the destruction of discrimination; from the destruction of discrimination he perishes.
~Bhagavad Gita

“It is difficult to conquer desire because it is of a highly complex and incomprehensible nature. But a man of discrimination and dispassion, who does constant and intense Sadhana, can conquer it quite easily.”
~ Swami Sivananda

“A man has a thousand and one desires. But the central strong desire is the sexual desire. The fundamental desire is the urge for a mate. All hang on this central basic desire. The desire for money, the desire for a son, the desire for property, the desire for houses, the desire for cattle and other desires come later on.”
~ Swami Sivananda

“Desire is a mode of the emotive mind. It has got a power of externalizing the mind. Desire is the fuel; thought is the fire. The thought-fire is kept up by the desire-fuel.”

“…the endless chain is welded out of three component, desire, thought and activity. A desire stimulates a thought; a thought embodies itself in an act.”

~ Swami Sivananda

“Sensual pleasure is only pain. It is momentary mental excitement, momentary sensation of flesh, momentary itching and scratching of the senses. You can have eternal bliss in your own Inner Atman alone.”
~ Swami Sivananda

“You can find eternal, infinite, supreme peace and bliss only in your Atma (Soul, Consciousness) which shines in all its splendour and glory in the chambers of your heart. It is an embodiment of Bliss (Ananda Swarupa).”

“You are ever free. You are already free. Liberation (Moksha) is not a thing to be attained. You will have to know that you are Atman, that you are free.

Destroy the subtle desires (Vasanas), and cravings. This will lead to the annihilation of the mind. Destruction of the mind will lead to the attainment of Brahma Jnana or wisdom of the Self.”
~ Swami Sivananda

Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone.
All else is fleeting. To know one’s Self is to be blissful always.
~Sri Ramana Maharshi

CH. V 26. Absolute freedom (or Brahmic bliss) exists on all sides for those self-controlled who are free from desire and anger, who have controlled their thoughts and who have realised the Self.
~Bhagavad Gita

INQUIRY - Contemplative questioning to disidentify from the thought streaming ~ Atman Nityananda

INQUIRY - Contemplative questioning to disidentify from the thought streaming

The essential part of our sadhana is to dissolve the egoic tendencies and be established in our true Self. In order to succeed to this, we must stop identification with thoughts and emotions.

Two of the main causes that we are so attached to our thoughts is that we are fascinated by them and we take them as a reality.

Thus, to stop identification with thoughts and imaginations, I suggest two inquiries which I developed during my spiritual journey. The one is to separate thoughts from lust or emotions in order to 'break down' the fascination of thinking or imagining and the other is a contemplative questioning which help us realize that the thoughts are not a reality. There are also other ways to stop fascination and attraction to thoughts, especially to those thoughts that are related to objects of pleasure, but separating the lust or the emotion from thoughts is one of the most effective ones.

In this essay I will explain the contemplative questioning.

An effective way to stop our identification with thoughts and the thought process is to dissolve our deception that thoughts is a reality by questioning our selves like this:

If I don't think about this or that, where does this or these things exist ?

Just ask and contemplate this question in silence. By remaining silent, where all these things you were thinking exist? Nowhere. Be silent and realize deeply that what you think as reality exists only in your mind.

Every time we do this silent contemplation we become more and more aware that thoughts are only an imaginary reality which exists only as long as we permit thoughts to arise in our head. It is important this understanding, (that the things we think are not a reality but only imagination), to become strong and steady and be implanted in our deeper consciousness (chitta); that's why the repetition of this contemplation for long time is needed. Otherwise our ego will deceive us very easily and make us identify with thoughts, especially thoughts related to our self-image and pleasure.

By this contemplative questioning we will realize also that the supposed external real world exists for us as long as we think about it. A steady knowledge and conviction that the world is unreal and the only reality is Consciousness (Atman, Brahman, God, Spirit...) is the foundation of Self-realization.

We must do this contemplative questioning every time that thoughts arise in our mind without our volition (which happens most of the time).

In order not to deceive ourselves by thinking that we want to entertain these thoughts it is necessary to have a task. For example when we start from our home to go to job we decide that we will remain concentrated to the breathing, to a mantra etc. Since we have decide this, then all thoughts that appear in our mind it is not our choice but our daydreaming. Then every time that arise thoughts we must apply this contemplative questioning. 

We must practice this willingly until it becomes a habit.

The advantage of this 'technique' is that we don't try to stop thinking forcefully, but this happens naturally because we take the energy and our attention from the thinking process and we put it into the questioning and its silent contemplation.

This 'technique' is also important because help us realize that the thoughts are not a reality but only our imaginary world as well as that the world is unreal, because when we don't think about the world and we gather our attention inside into our true Self the world doesn't exist for us. 

The only 'thing we cannot avoid is our Self (Consciousness) which is the only reality. Our true Self or Consciousness, is real because never ceases to be. It is ever present, unchanging, limitless, infinite, timeless, formless, causeless, and ever peaceful and blissful!

By being aware of it is up to us if we want to live in imagination or not. We always have to decide what is more important to us, reality or imagination.

Meditate on the lord ~ Swami sivananda

Meditate on the lord

Meditate on the lord, the inner ruler, the indweller of your heart.
the lotus of your heart will blossom.
the sun of wisdom will shine.
the darkness of the heart will end.
the five klesas ( psychic sources of sorrow) will be annihilated.
the three fires (internal, external and supernatural suffering) will be extinguished.
sins and samskaras (mental impressions) will be burnt.
vasanas ( egoic tendencies) and cravings will be fried.

Meditate on the eternal
which is free from pain, from disease, from fear and delusion,
which is all-filling, pure, far yet near,
the birth place of the five elements,
the final goal of yogis and sages,
the source of mind, senses and vedas,
the place where silence reigns supreme,
where there is immortal bliss beyond thought, the supreme, glorious splendour,
where thought is dead,
where there is neither noise nor fight.

Purity, humility and mercy are the rungs of the ladder to the supreme abode of my beloved.
you may burn the ladder now - i will not come down any more.
rivers of honey run in this wonderful land, and flowers do not fade at any time.
I swim daily in the ocean of eternity.
I drink the immortal nectar.
Hunger and thirst torment me not.
Exhaustion and fatigue trouble me not.
There is no need of lamps and electric light - there is eternal sunshine.
There is no fear of snakes and scorpions - this deathless realm makes everyone fearless.

When you have realized oneness, when you behold brahman everywhere,
can there be 'here' and 'there'?
can there be 'this' and 'that'?
can there be 'i' and 'you' and 'he'?
can there be one, two or three?
one homogeneous, blissful essence alone exists.

There is only one brahman - the infinite.
all dualities, differences, and distinctions melt away.
the seer and the seen become one.
the meditator and the meditated fuse.
the thinker and the thought blend.
the knower and the knowable merge.
it is the transcendental experience of wholeness, perfection, fullness, freedom and perennial joy.