Sunday, April 21, 2019

THE DESIRE FOR LIBERATION VS THE DESIRES FOR SENSE EXPERIENSES ¬ Vivekachudamani


THE DESIRE FOR LIBERATION VS THE DESIRES FOR SENSE EXPERIENSES

275. The desire for Self-realisation is obscured by innumerable desires for things other than the Self. When they have been destroyed by the constant attachment to the Self, the Atman clearly manifests Itself of Its own accord.

276. As the mind becomes gradually established in the Inmost Self, it proportionately gives up the desires for external objects. And when all such desires have been eliminated, there takes place the unobstructed realisation of the Atman.

277. The Yogi’s mind dies, being constantly fixed on his own Self. Thence follows the cessation of desires.

¬ Vivekachudamani

By Nirvikalpa Samadhi the truth of Brahman is clearly and definitely realised and all desires are destroyed. ~ Vivekachudamani


By Nirvikalpa Samadhi the truth of Brahman is clearly and definitely realised and all desires are destroyed

~ Vivekachudamani

360. The truth of the Paramatman is extremely subtle, and cannot be reached by the gross outgoing tendency of the mind. It is only accessible to noble souls with perfectly pure minds, by means of Samadhi brought on by an extraordinary fineness of the mental state.

361. As gold purified by thorough heating on the fire gives up its impurities and attains to its own lustre, so the mind, through meditation, gives up its impurities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, and attains to the reality of Brahman.

362. When the mind, thus purified by constant practice, is merged in Brahman, then Samadhi passes on from the Savikalpa to the Nirvikalpa stage, and leads directly to the realisation of the Bliss of Brahman, the One without a second.

363. By this Samadhi are destroyed all desires which are like knots, all work is at an end, and inside and out there takes place everywhere and always the spontaneous manifestation of one’s real nature.

364. Reflection should be considered a hundred times superior to hearing, and meditation a hundred thousand times superior even to reflection, but the Nirvikalpa Samadhi is infinite in its results.

365. By the Nirvikalpa Samadhi the truth of Brahman is clearly and definitely realised, but not otherwise, for then the mind, being unstable by nature, is apt to be mixed up with other perceptions.

366. Hence with the mind calm and the senses controlled always drown the mind in the Supreme Self that is within, and through the realisation of thy identity with that Reality destroy the darkness created by Nescience, which is without beginning.

Monday, April 15, 2019

The eradication of egoistic tendencies. -- Swami Sivananda


The eradication of egoistic tendencies

Eradicate evil qualities.The development of virtuous qualities will itself remove the negative qualities.But it is better to make a positive attempt in the eradication of these evil qualities.Then the progress will be rapid.It is double attack on the enemy.Then success becomes easy and sure.

If you could remove lust or anger or egoism, all other evil qualities will disappear by themselves.

All evil qualities are the attendants of egoism.If egoism is destroyed, if the commander is killed all the soldiers or retinues will take to the heels out of fright, because they have lost their head.

All vices originate from anger.If anger is destroyed all sorts of vices will vanish.Therefore, concentrate your attention in killing egoism or anger.Then the whole work is done.


Saturday, April 13, 2019

ONLY NOW I EXIST - ONLY NOW I CAN BE HAPPY ~ Atman Nityananda


ONLY NOW I EXIST- ONLY NOW I CAN BE HAPPY

We are constantly seeking something more than what is happening here and now, underestimating the value of the present moment which is all that exists. We are seeking the happiness in another place, in another moment, because we do not really know what happiness is. We do not know what happiness is because we do not fully experience what we are.

By seeking some kind of happiness in the future, we underestimate life that is happening only now. We underestimate the present moment and we seek happiness in the future, since we do not see (we do not realize and experience) the happiness that exists within us here and now, the innate happiness of our soul that does not depend on anything, on any external condition. This happiness or better to say this uncaused, uncondiotioned bliss, does not depend on people, on circumastances, on what we have or do not have, or on what we are going to acquire or achieve.

We become beggars of happiness when we are looking for happiness in the future, in a fantasy of the mind, when we depend our happiness on people, experiences, situations, while happiness exists only in the present moment, here and now, inside us, independent of anything outside of us.

Why do you seek to find in other place and time what is inside you here and now? Why do you put preconditions to be happy, while happiness does not require any condition?

Do you know that the preconditions that you put for your happiness blind your eyes and your mind, and so you cannot see the always present happiness that lies in your core of your being here and now?

Life is only now, happiness exists only here and now within us and not outside.

Only now can we experience bliss infinite if we are 100% present, fully aware of our Beingness here and now.

Friday, April 12, 2019

Awareness of Being is Bliss / 46 of the book 'I Am That' ¬ Nisargadatta

Awareness of Being is Bliss
Chapter 46 of the book 'I Am That'

Questioner: By profession I am a physician. I began with surgery, continued with psychiatry and also wrote some books on mental health and healing by faith. I came to you to learn the laws of spiritual health.

Maharaj: When you are trying to cure a patient, what exactly are you trying to cure? What is cure? When can you say that a man is cured?

Q: I seek to cure the body as well as improve the link between the body and the mind. I also seek to set right the mind.

M: Did you investigate the connection between the mind and the body? At what point are they connected?

Q: Between the body and the indwelling consciousness lies the mind.

M: Is not the body made of food? And can there be a mind without food?

Q: The body is built and maintained by food. Without food the mind usually goes weak. But the mind is not mere food. There is a transforming factor which creates a mind in the body. What is that transforming factor?

M: Just like the wood produces fire which is not wood, so does the body produce the mind which is not the body. But to whom does the mind appear? Who is the perceiver of the thoughts and feelings which you call the mind? There is wood, there is fire and there is the enjoyer of the fire. Who enjoys the mind? Is the enjoyer also a result of food, or is it independent?

Q: The perceiver is independent.

M: How do you know? Speak from your own experience. You are not the body nor the mind. You say so. How do you know?

Q: I really do not know. I guess so.

M: Truth is permanent. The real is changeless. What changes is not real, what is real does not change. Now, what is it in you that does not change? As long as there is food, there is body and mind. When the food is stopped, the body dies and the mind dissolves. But does the observer perish?

Q: I guess it does not. But I have no proof.

M: You yourself are the proof. You have not, nor can you have any other proof. You are yourself, you know yourself, you love yourself. Whatever the mind does, it does for the love of its own self. The very nature of the self is love. It is loved, loving and lovable. It is the self that makes the body and the mind so interesting, so very dear. The very attention given to them comes from the self.

Q: If the self is not the body nor the mind, can it exist without the body and the mind?

M: Yes, it can. It is a matter of actual experience that the self has being independent of mind and body. It is being -- awareness -- bliss. Awareness of being is bliss.

Q: It may be a matter of actual experience to you, but it is not my case. How can I come to the same experience? What practices to follow, what exercises to take up?

M: To know that you are neither body nor mind, watch yourself steadily and live unaffected by your body and mind, completely aloof, as if you were dead. It means you have no vested interests, either in the body or in the mind.

Q: Dangerous!

M: I am not asking you to commit suicide. Nor can you. You can only kill the body, you cannot stop the mental process, nor can you put an end to the person you think you are. Just remain unaffected. This complete aloofness, unconcern with mind and body is the best proof that at the core of your being you are neither mind nor body. What happens to the body and the mind may not be within your power to change, but you can always put an end to your imagining yourself to be body and mind. Whatever happens, remind yourself that only your body and mind are affected, not yourself. The more earnest you are at remembering what needs to be remembered, the sooner will you be aware of yourself as you are, for memory will become experience. Earnestness reveals being. What is imagined and willed becomes actuality -- here lies the danger as well as the way out.

Tell me, what steps have you taken to separate your real self, that in you which is changeless, from your body and mind?

Q: I am a medical man, I have studied a lot, I imposed on myself a strict discipline in the way of exercises and periodical fasts and I am a vegetarian.

M: But in the depth of your heart what is it that you want?

Q: I want to find reality.

M: What price are you willing to pay for reality? Any price?

Q: While in theory I am ready to pay any price, in actual life again and again I am being prompted to behave in ways which come in between me and reality. Desire carries me away.

M: Increase and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfil them. It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Transform desire into love. All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are expressions of your longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well.

Q: I know that I should not…

M: Wait! Who told you that you should not? What is wrong with wanting to be happy?

Q: The self must go, l know.

M: But the self is there. Your desires are there. Your longing to be happy is there. Why? Because you love yourself. By all means love yourself -- wisely. What is wrong is to love yourself stupidly, so as to make yourself suffer. Love yourself wisely. Both indulgence and austerity have the same purpose in view -- to make you happy. Indulgence is the stupid way, austerity is the wise way.

Q: What is austerity?

M: Once you have gone through an experience, not to go through it again is austerity. To eschew the unnecessary is austerity. Not to anticipate pleasure or pain Is austerity. Having things under control at all times is austerity. Desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience.

It is the choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing -- food. sex, power, fame -- will make you happy is to deceive yourself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.

Q: Since there is nothing basically wrong in desire as an expression of love of self, how should desire be managed?

M: Live your life intelligently, with the interests of your deepest self always in mind. After all, what do you really want? Not perfection; you are already perfect. What you seek is to express in action what you are. For this you have a body and a mind. Take them in hand and make them serve you.

Q: Who is the operator here? Who is to take the body-mind in hand?

M: The purified mind is the faithful servant of the self. It takes charge of the instruments, inner and outer, and makes them serve their purpose.

Q: And what is their purpose?

M: The self is universal and its aims are universal. There is nothing personal about the self. Live an orderly life, but don't make it a goal by itself. It should be the starting point for high adventure.

Q: Do you advise me to come to India repeatedly?

M: If you are earnest, you don't need moving about. You are yourself wherever you are and you create your own climate. Locomotion and transportation will not give you salvation. You are not the body and dragging the body from place to place will take you nowhere. Your mind is free to roam the three worlds -- make full use of it.

Q: If I am free, why am I in a body?

M: you are not in the body, the body is in you! The mind is in you. They happen to you. They are there because you find them interesting. Your very nature has the infinite capacity to enjoy. It is full of zest and affection. It sheds its radiance on all that comes within its focus of awareness and nothing is excluded. It does not know evil nor ugliness, it hopes, it trusts, it loves. You people do not know how much you miss by not knowing your own true self. You are neither the body nor the mind, neither the fuel nor the fire. They appear and disappear according to their own laws.

That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but never wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love your self absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realised them as one with yourself, you cannot love them Don't pretend to be what you are not, don't refuse to be what you are. Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realisation, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realise the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self-realisation can break it. Go for it resolutely.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Equanimity of mind and elimination of raga-dvesha (attraction and repulsion) ¬ Swami Sivanadna


Equanimity of mind and elimination of raga-dvesha (attraction and repulsion)
¬ Swami Sivanadna

The undisciplined mind is like a wild horse. When you are established in Samata (equanimity, tranquility) state you will have a novel pleasure, an infinite bliss. Samata state should be obtained by slow mehtal training. The two currents in the mind attraction and repulsion (Raga-dvesha,), should be destroyed. Samata state increases the development of the will.

All varieties of emotions emanate from this single emotion, attraction and repulsion (Raga-dvesha). It is these currents that drag you out to activity. They are the enemies of self-surrender. Destroy desires and egoism. Kill out the thirsting for life, objects and sense-enjoyments (Abhinivesa).

Develop Viveka (discerment, discrimination), Vairagya (dispassion), Titiksha (endurance to adversities), Udasinata, Vichara (capacity to do enquiry). Have constant Satsanga. These currents will die out. It is these currents that create the ideas of pleasure and pain, friend and enemy, heat and cold, good and bad, the different dualities (Dvandvas). The dualities (Dvandvas) are illusory.

The disollution of desires Swami Sivananda

The disollution of desires 
Swami Sivananda

The The ever-restless mind becomes quiescent when all desires vanish. Desire raises Sankalpas (Thoughts, imaginations). Man performs acticins for acquiring the desired objects. Thus he is caught up in the wheel of Samsara. This wheel stops when Vasanas perish.

Ahankara (ego), Sankalpa (Thought, imagination), Vasana (subtles desire) and Prana (vital energy) have intimate connection with the mind. There cannot be any mind without these four. Prana is the life of the mind. Ahankara is the root of the mind. Sankalpas are the branches of the tree of mind, vasana is the seed of the mind.

This deep-rooted tree of Samsara of dire Ajnana (ignorance) has the mind as its root. It ramifies in various directions with branches full of flowers, tendrils, fruits, etc. If this root (the mind) is destroyed, the tree of Samsara, this tree of birth and death will also be destroyed. Cut this root-mind-with the axe of Brahma-Jnana (knowledge of Brahman). Chop off the branches-the Sankalpas-with the knife of Viveka (discerment) and Vairagya (dispassion).

Monday, April 1, 2019

THERE IS NO LIBERATION WITHOUT THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO ~ Atman Nityananda


THERE IS NO LIBERATION WITHOUT THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO

The great masters and the sacred texts (like Bhagavad Gita) have clarified this subject; therfore there is no doubt that the ego must die completely in order to attain enlightenment or liberation.

Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) said:

''This rebirth occurs when we completely die to our ego"
"When the last trace of ego disappears, it is then that the real birth of our identity as the Supreme Being takes place within us.
 
Sri Ramana Maharshi said:

 "The spiritual practice adopted by the jiva (the individual, or individual soul) is complete when it destroys the ego in its origin"

"The Ego must, die, must disappear together with the inherent vasanas (desires and egoistic tendencies)."

"The death of the ego in the unlimited Silence (the non-dual Truth) and the shining forth of the Self is the attainment of Oneness (Kaivalya-Siddhi) In that State of Jnana, pure Bliss will gloriously blaze forth as one's own True Nature. "

Swami Sivananda said:

"You cannot realize God if you have the slightest trace of selfishness, or attachment to the name and form, or the slightest nuance of worldly desire in the mind"


´´The true freedom is the liberation from egoism and desires.

´´Freedom lies in the dissolution of the mind. The eradication and annihilation of desires leads to the sublime state of supreme bliss and perfect freedom.--

Sri Sankaracharya wrote in his famous book Vivekachudamani 

" 299. So long as one has any relation to this wicked ego, there should not be the least talk about Liberation, which is unique.''

''300. Freed from the clutches of egoism, as the moon from those of Rahu, man attains to his real nature, and becomes pure, infinite, ever blissful and self-luminous.''
 

''301. That which has been created by the Buddhi extremely deluded by Nescience, and which is perceived in this body as "I am such and such" – when that egoism is totally destroyed, one attains an unobstructed identity with Brahman.''

“303. As long as the slightest residue of poison persists in the victim, total recovery cannot be expected: the ego causes the same effect in a yogi who yearns for liberation.

 
According the gunas the I’ or ego assumes three aspects: the sattvic ego, the rajasic ego and the tamasic ego.

However I prefer to classify the ego in two categories. The sattvic ego (or superior ego) and rajasotamasic ego (the inferior ego).

I prefer this classification because the rajasic and tamasic aspects of the ego are what impede us to live harmoniously and aware of our true nature, while the sattvic ego is what is helping us move from the darkness of materialism, the identification with the body and the lower mind, to the light of consciousness and the divine life. 

The lower ego (of Rajasotamasic nature) causes our identification with the body and all other identifications, and  is a sum of selfish tendencies such as pride, greed, lasciviousness, gluttony, envy, anger, fear, taste, disgust, hatred etc.. 

The higher ego (of sattvic nature) that is what gives us individuality and identifies with the Self (Atman, Consciousness) and not with the body.


In order to achieve liberation, the lower ego must be dissolved completely. Without the death of the lower ego there is neither enlightenment, nor liberation, nor self-realization. Awakening can happen before the total dissolution of the lower ego,  but awakening it isn’t  the end of the journey.

The liberated one (Jivnamukta) in order to be able to communicate his teachings to this 3D world, he must maintain his individuality; and according to the great masters (such as Swami Sivananda, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Amma) this happens because of a residue of the sattvic ego. This residue of the sattvic ego has nothing to do with the ego that causes the identifications, the attachments, the dysfunctions and the suffering; these happen due to the lower rajasotamasic ego.
 

The liberated has no identification of any kind and all egoic tendencies (pride, desires, greed, greed, jealousy, lasciviousness, gluttony, etc.) are dissolved forever. The Jivanmukta has no identification with his body, the mind, the senses, the objects, etc.

The liberated one is rooted and established in his essential nature (Atman, Consciousness) without having any kind of identity.

"Even in a Jivanmukta (Liberated) there is a slight trace of sattvic egoism. The Jivanmukta performs actions through this sattvic selfishness " ~  Swami Sivananda