I am that

This collection of the timeless teachings of one of the greatest sages of India, is a testament to the uniqueness of the seer's life and work. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a teacher who did not propound any ideology or religion but gently unwrapped the mystery of the self. His message is simple, direct and yet sublime. The book preserves his dialogues with the followers who came from around the world seeking guidance in destroying false identities. The sage's sole concern was with human suffering and the ending of suffering. It was his mission to guide the individual to an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of being. He taught that mind must recognise and penetrate its own state of being, not 'being this or that, here or there, then or now', but just timeless being. This is a legacy from a unique teacher who helps the reader to a clearer understanding of himself.

Quotes from the book-

~

Reality is the ultimate destroyer. All separation, every kind of estrangement and alienation is false. All is one - this is the ultimate solution of every conflict......As long as we imagine ourselves to be separate personalities, one quite apart from another, we cannot grasp reality which is essentially impersonal...... To locate a thing you need space, to place an event you need time; but the timeless and spaceless defies handling. It makes everything perceivable, yet itself is beyond perception. The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it.

~

The real does not begin; it only reveals itself as beginning less and endless, all-pervading, all-powerful, immovable prime mover, timelessly changeless..... Reality is not an event, it cannot be experienced....reality neither comes nor goes. There is no such thing as an expression of reality.....Only reality is: there is nothing else.

The trinity: mind, self and spirit, when looked into, become unity...... "Nothing is me", is the first step. "Everything is me" is the next.

~

Discover all you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not being, this or that - nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you. You must watch yourself continuously - particularly your mind - moment by moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-self ........ be aware of that state which is only, simply being, without being this or that or the other.

~

Having never left the house you asking for the way home. Get rid of wrong ideas, that is all. Collecting right ideas also will take you nowhere. Just cease imagining..... Don't rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether.

~

Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done, it happens when you realise your true nature..... The first steps in self-acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further. What helps is silence. Look at yourself in total silence, do not describe yourself.

~

Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realising that there is nothing to give up..... To be, you must be nobody. To think yourself to be something, or somebody, is death and hell...... When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you.

~

Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do not see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream itself.

~

Within the prison of your world appears a man who tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is neither continuous nor permanent and is based on a misapprehension. He pleads with you to get out ot it, by the same way by which you got into it. You got into it by forgetting
what you are and you will get out of it by knowing yourself as you are.

~

"There is only life, there is nobody who lives a life."

~

I am that online

Overcoming duality

Nondualism may be viewed as the understanding or belief that dualism or dichotomy are illusory phenomena. Examples of dualisms include self/other, mind/body, male/female, good/evil, active/passive, dualism/nondualism and many others. It is accessible as a belief, theory, condition, as part of a tradition, as a practice, or as the quality of union with reality. 1


HINDUISM

[Hindus believe that] Maya is the limited, purely physical and mental reality in which our everyday consciousness has become entangled. Maya is held to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self — the Cosmic Spirit also known as Brahman.
Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this — more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body, is the result of an unenlightened perspective. 2


ZOROASTRIANISM

About 10-11 BC the Iranian prophet Zarathushtra saw in his revelation the universe as the cosmic struggle between aša “truth” and druj “lie.” The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain aša. For humankind, this occurs through active participation in life and the exercise of good thoughts, words and deeds. 3


BUDDHISM

Buddhism teaches the middle way, a non-attached state of neither craving for pleasure nor avoiding pain.

“'Everything exists': That is one extreme.
'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme.
Avoiding these two extremes,
the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle.…”

- from the Kaccayanagotta Sutta

TAOISM

Taoists seek a perfect harmony with the “way” - Tao, praising the wu-wei- the doing of non-doing.

“The great tao flows everywhere,
to the left and to the right,
It loves and nourishes all things,
but does not lord it over them.”

"The scholar learns something every day,
the man of tao unlearns something every day,
until he gets back to non-doing."

“The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.”

-Lao Tze

Duality and the battle between the yin and the yang is all around us. The materialists vs the spiritual, science vs religion, consumerism vs ecology, the "bad guys" vs the "good guys". My question is- does there have to be a vs? For me the only way of overcoming duality is by seeing straight through it. Everything is inter-dependent, therefore it is impossible to take sides.

The underlying unity and the source from where everything arises is eternal, therefore there is no right or wrong way to come to the place where we already are.
You can be a balanced person who will find peace and understanding in the Buddhists "Middle Way". Or you can be like myself- born to dance the dance of extremes, and find exactly the same thing. The lesson from extremes has for me been a powerful tool of understanding. How clearly one extreme turns into its opposite! Utter hopelessness turning in an instant to overwhelming optimism. Despair taking a minuscule step and reaching the state of bliss. The extremes form a circle and in between lies nothing but the timeless/infinite space of the Void. We are trained to look at the opposites as a linear line, that is the veil that is hiding the truth.

Nobody can explain the intrinsic truth behind the yin and the yang better than Alan Watts





"[The non-dual traditions] are more interested in pointing out the Nondual state of Suchness, which is not a discrete state of awareness but the ground or empty condition of all states... [They] have an enormous number of these 'pointing out instructions', where they simply point out what is already happening in your awareness, anyway. Every experience you have is already nondual, whether you realize it or not. So it is not necessary for you to change your state of consciousness in order to discover this nonduality. Any state of consciousness you have will do just fine, because nonduality is fully present in each state... recognition is the point. Recognition of what always already is the case. Change of state is useless, a distraction... subject and object are actually one and you simply need to recognize this... you already have everything in consciousness that is required. You are looking right at the answer... but you don't recognize [it]. Someone comes along and points [it] out, and you slap your head and say, Yes I was looking right at it..."

-Ken Wilber “Brief history of everything”

Wonderful illustration of the chakras and the awakening of kundalini

My favourite videos by my favourite philosopher

Work as Play



Time and the More It Changes



Conversations With Myself

The Middle Way

Alan Watts Teaches Meditation

Zen

Books that I love

Here is one of my favourite books online...

"The characteristic features of Indian culture have long been a search for ultimate verities and the concomitant disciple-guru relationship. My own path led me to a Christlike sage whose beautiful life was chiseled for the ages. He was one of the great masters who are India's sole remaining wealth. Emerging in every generation, they have bulwarked their land against the fate of Babylon and Egypt. I find my earliest memories covering the anachronistic features of a previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant life, a yogi amidst the Himalayan snows. These glimpses of the past, by some dimensionless link, also afforded me a glimpse of the future. The helpless humiliations of infancy are not banished from my mind. I was resentfully conscious of not being able to walk or express myself freely. Prayerful surges arose within me as I realized my bodily impotence. My strong emotional life took silent form as words in many languages. Among the inward confusion of tongues, my ear gradually accustomed itself to the circumambient Bengali syllables of my people. The beguiling scope of an infant's mind! adultly considered limited to toys and toes. Psychological ferment and my unresponsive body brought me to many obstinate crying-spells. I recall the general family bewilderment at my distress. Happier memories, too, crowd in on me: my mother's caresses, and my first attempts at lisping phrase and toddling step. These early triumphs, usually forgotten quickly, are yet a natural basis of self-confidence. My far-reaching memories are not unique. Many yogis are known to have retained their self-consciousness without interruption by the dramatic transition to and from "life" and "death." If man be solely a body, its loss indeed places the final period to identity. But if prophets down the millenniums spake with truth, man is essentially of incorporeal nature. The persistent core of human egoity is only temporarily allied with sense perception...."

http://www.crystalclarity.com/yogananda/