October 3, 2013

"There are no forms.  There is no existence nor non-existence, no birth and no death; there is nothing known as reality, nor something which may be called unreal....Enough of such descriptions....Whatever is is--it is void, it is OM.  Enough of even such descriptions....Even the concept of supreme being is only a concept, not the truth.  Let it all be this way or let the truth be different from all this.  Abandon the pursuit of the fruit of actions.  You are enlightened.  Do not exert yourself in vain pursuit." - Vasistha's Yoga

Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha - The Heart Sutra

gone, gone, gone beyond, completely exposed, so be it

October 2, 2013

"It is because of the liquidity of water that the one ocean is able to give rise to waves and currents; it is because of the infinite potentiality of consciousness that it is similarly able to appear to be diverse....The diversity that arises in consciousness on account of the limitlessness of its potentiality appears to give rise to diversity of creatures." - Vasistha's Yoga

We are because we are possible.

September 30

"The universe exists in a house; but the house itself is pure void." - Vasistha's Yoga

Diversity carved out of unity, unity conjured from void,  and all of it "exists" merely as the play of consciousness  Too far out?  Consider the silicon chip.  Once encoded with an operating system it authors endless mischief via numberless virtual realities, and yet it never changes a whit.        

September 20, 2013

Imagine your mind to be a tachometer of TPM (thoughts per minute) rather than RPM.  A high TPM state might be described as follows:

"However well I realize 'this is not real', 'this is not real' after intense inquiry, the feeling 'this is' does not cease.  From moment to moment, new experiences of pleasure and pain arise and cease, like the flowing stream of a river." - Vasistha's Yoga

Given that we are both blessed and burdened by active body-minds, this river of sensory impressions and thoughts will roll on regardless of our unconsciousness or our enlightened state.  Perhaps the TPM will wind down through a meditation practice, and maybe at rare times it will cease altogether.  Nevertheless, the feeling "this is" will rise up again like a gorgon's head, and with it the engine will rev up, too.  For the liberated, this makes no difference, the clutch of self-inquiry has disengaged the body-mind forevermore.  It can rev all it wants--the awakened being ain't goin' nowhere.

"The distinction between bondage and liberation lies in the state of one's consciousness, which is conditioned in bondage and unconditioned in liberation....The enlightened consciousness is unaffected by the rising and setting of likes and dislikes, mental action and supra-mental consciousness.  When one is firmly established in the unconditioned consciousness, even these distinctions vanish.  The diversity which people experience in this creation is but an appearance, like the colors of a rainbow." - VY   

September 17, 2013

"When the life-force is not diverted by the mind and the body, it remains rooted in peace within the heart." - Vasistha's Yoga

"I am perfectly empty of all mental formations, void of mind, yet fully aware." - Nisargadatta Maharaj

"What IS is as it is." - VY

September 15, 2013

We live lives of blind impulsion, perpetually driven by unfulfilled desires to meet socially inculcated needs.  Even when we take notice of this and try to pluck them out, without sustained and structured spiritual practice they will return like weeds to a neglected garden.  We call such a life the "human condition."  We could as well call it unconsciousness.  Until we finally address unconsciousness for once and all, ours will always be this restless and discontented human condition.

"Above all, we want to remain conscious.  We shall bear every suffering and humiliation, but we shall rather remain conscious. Unless we revolt against this craving for experience and let go the manifested altogether, there can be no relief.  We shall remain trapped." - Nisargadatta Maharaj

September 14, 2013

To accede to conditioning is to live a lie, and a tumultuous, uncomfortable lie at that.  Most of us live lives blindly controlled by subconscious instincts run amok.  We are pin-balls pinging between "acquire" and "avoid" in a ceaseless quest to assuage the unquenchable.  We are raw nerves constantly juiced by low voltage anxiety.  That is the ego's straw man, fear in a thousand forms: as survival instinct, as craving, as an urge to power and acquisition, as every selfish and self-centered act we commit every day of our lives. Anxiety is fear at a low boil, and unrecognized it becomes corrosive through its gnawing "not enough, never enough" mantra forever plaguing and driving us to distraction.

Ego will spit in the eye of truth--the sound of one hand clapping is its death knell.

Freedom is immanent and imminent for us.  Do we choose the known, the "safe," with its inherent restlessness, irritability and discontent?  Or will it be peace beyond understanding, beyond ego, peace that answers all questions and ends all anxiety?

"Only when the mind is totally purified of all conditioning does it regain its utter purity; that mind experiences liberation." - Nisargadatta Maharaj