F.: For the next several days, Advaita Vedanta Quotes and Pointers from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Dennis Waite, Louise Sterling, and Floyd Henderson shall be offered for your consideration:
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj “You have some experiences and you try to benefit from them, but remember that whatever is going to be of use to you ultimately is going to harm you. Wherever there is use, there is also dis-use in this world of duality. Whatever you like is going to create harm for you. Whatever you like most is, in the end, going to be most harmful for you.”
“Every organic being, whether an insect or a human, depends on food. All these flowers, this foliage, is our antecedent state.”
“Before this knowledge ‘I Am’ appeared on you, you were absolutely unattached. As soon as the knowledge dawned on you, you became attached to everything around you. Only that false ‘I’ is attached. Everything is just happening, and the false ‘I’ is taking the credit for doing things.”
[Emphasizing that you are not the body]:
“When you travel in a car, are you the car?”
Dennis Waite "An opinion is always one view out of many possible views. They are therefore dualistic and necessarily false."
ON KNOWING THE SELF: "Whatever we can see objectively, we cannot be that. This applies just as much to the idea of a role, that is actually a group of concepts in the mind, as to a physical object that we believe to exist on the other side of the room. Indeed, this is another argument to explain how it is that our real Self must forever elude the mind. We can never know it as an object simply because it is always the subject."
ON TRUTH: "The most profound wisdom is knowledge of Self. All false conceptions of what this is must be renounced before the Truth can be discovered. Truth is not about acquiring more and more knowledge until some sort of critical mass is attained and the Self is realised - quite the opposite. It is about discarding more and more of the material and immaterial aspects to which the ego has become attached until nothing more is left – the Self is none of these."
ON HAPPINESS: "This is the ultimate irony. We spend all our efforts looking outside of ourselves for that elusive object or situation which will finally give us lasting happiness. Yet it is the act of looking that takes us away from happiness. Happiness is what remains when searching ceases and we are ‘left’ with our Self - perfect happiness."
ON REALITY: "It is never going to be possible for the mind to move from the world that it thinks it knows to the Reality that it wants to know. The mind and the world are part of the illusion; the world is the domain of illusory objects and the mind the domain of illusory concepts."
Louise Sterling “Wherever there is a centre – conceptual and limited – that acts or decides, this movement of Love, natural and effortless, the true selflessness, is unseen.”
“Seekers who are veterans at the seeking 'game' tend to covet and acquire the experiences, behaviours and concepts which typically describe the 'journey' to Self-understanding or the Realized State. Often, this is a point of bondage, as the concepts are so “'precious' and 'true' that the seeker is unable to let go. In some instances, the seeker will prefer to cling to a notion of selflessness, or an experience of emptiness, than apply the techniques of self-enquiry and relinquish what is so valued.”
“The Unchanging Reality has no levels or degrees – there is only the appearance of 'movement' in the mind as false layers are removed.”
“If Who You Are cannot be spoken, described, or experienced, then surely any concepts and experiences, however true, will ultimately have to be abandoned. Any identification creates the abyss of separation.”
“Have you identified your possessions – spiritual and conceptual – that give a sense of shape and identity to the false self-centre? What are you clinging to, that you must throw overboard?”
Floyd Henderson
"The 'journey' aims to put you fully in touch with reality. To be out of touch with reality is to be insane. This 'journey' is about getting in touch with reality in order to be free of the bondage of the illusions and falsehoods of a mind exposed to years of enculturation."
"Among religions and philosophies, there is no other means that can produce the necessary brain-flush save completion of the entire Advaita 'journey' which invites the dissolution of all of the contamination that is 'the mind'.”
Ultimately, Advaita Vedanta is the Teaching that has the 'goal' of becoming the non-teaching by way of un-teaching."
ON RELIGIOUS AND / OR SPIRITUAL EGO-STATES: "All human suffering is rooted in not living naturally, and all suffering persons (i.e., the non-Realized) are living unnaturally or supernaturally. Those living unnaturally can be recognized by their self-destructive behaviors. Those living supernaturally can be recognized by their magical thinking, by their belief in modernized versions of ancient gods, by their acceptance of ancient myths and superstitions as fact, by their disdain for scientific evidence, and by their belief in non-factual explanations for naturally-occurring events."
"Unnatural living and supernatural living are both tiresome and exhausting, but natural living is easy."
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
