TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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QUOTATIONS AND POINTERS dealing with NON-DUALITY, ADVAITA, NISARGA YOGA and more
[To continue with offering for your consideration non-duality-based pointers dealing with a variety of topics.]
Quotations and Pointers by Category and Subject Matter
from
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
REGARDING "THE BODY" and "THE MIND"
"My true state, which is whole, undifferentiated, is beyond birth and death. I am never bound by my body and mind. I am limitless."
[So
what is that “I” then? It is the energy / matter which has always been, which
currently is, and which forever shall be. Why? Because neither energy nor
matter can be created nor destroyed. Never “created”? So it has always been.
Cannot be destroyed? So it was and is and shall be. To say, “I am limitless” is
a use of the word “I” employed for the sake of discussion and explanation only.
]
"All your problems are body-mind problems. Even so, you cling to that
body."
MAHARAJ ON "THE BODY"
"Subsequent to that 'I Am' and body-mind [that is, following the manifestation of the consciousness and the assumption of false identifications] there occurs what you call 'spiritual seeking' or 'spiritual knowledge'. This is nonsense."
"Looking outside for light and sound, all disciples undergo some spiritual experience and that itself is bondage. They compare their experiences with others. Those disciples think they are very advanced. They are attracted to the experiences of sound and light, etc., because they identify themselves with the body. They want a shape and design; therefore, they revel in experiences which indicate shape and design."
"I appear to hear and see and talk and act, but to Me it just happens, as to you digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind machine looks after it, but leaves Me out of it. Just as you do not need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and actions. They just happen and leave Me unconcerned, for in My 'world,' nothing ever goes wrong."
" . . . 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."
“From the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously, this consciousness ‘I am’
has appeared—there is no reason, no cause.”
"Prior to taking this form, you were formless; spontaneously the form
came, and when the form came there was a natural longing to return to the
formless state. When you want to return to the formless, desireless state, then
only you come here, to seek What You Are. The consciousness has to know the
consciousness. When it realizes itself, then only do you return to normal."
"After the information given to you by the mother, that you are a boy or
girl, all your further acquisitions are by hearsay."
"Understand that it is not the individual which has consciousness; it is
the consciousness which assumes innumerable forms."
“In order to manifest itself, the consciousness needs a frame, a particular
construct in which it can appear.”
“Consciousness is present everywhere, but knowledge of that consciousness is
dependent on the form.”
“Every organic being, whether an insect or a human, depends on food. All these
flowers, this foliage, is our antecedent state.”
[Emphasizing that you are not the body]: “When you travel in a car, are you the
car?”
“ . . . You are the light.”
“From birth, what has made the body grow? It is no power in the world. It is
the power of beingness, the atom, the Self, the consciousness . . . call it
what you will.”
“When the birth is disproved, the great noble meaning of spirituality and the
meaning of this world—everything—is disproved.”
“If they come face-to-face with that root, they will be stunned into silence.”
" . . . By clinging to the body, you hand yourself over to time and death
- you are imposing it on yourself."
"Don’t you see that all your problems are your body’s problems - food,
clothing, shelter, family, friends, name, fame, security, survival; all these
lose their meaning the moment you realise that you may not be a mere
body."
"I cramped myself into a small thing, a body; I made myself a fragment and
became needful. I need so many things as a body."
"Consciousness opens the gate for you to transcend consciousness. There are two aspects; one is conceptual, dynamic consciousness which is full of concepts, and the other is transcendent consciousness. Even the concept 'I Am' is not there. Conceptual, qualitative Brahman, the one that is full of concepts and is qualitative, is the outcome of the functioning body."
"It is selfishness, due to a self-identification with the body, that is the main problem and the cause of all other problems."
"Consciousness
has identified with a form. Later, it understands that it is not that form and
goes further. In a few cases it may reach the space, and very often, there it
stops. In a very few cases, it reaches its real source, beyond all
conditioning."
"It is difficult to give up that inclination of identifying the body as
the self. I am not talking to an individual, I am talking to the
consciousness."
"I have told you many times what your true state is, but, through force of
habit, you again descend into body identification. A stage has now arrived at
which you must give up this bodily identification. The bodily activities will
continue until the body drops off, but you should not identify with them."
"It is not identification as a person, as you think. The body is an aid for the manifestation of consciousness, for experiencing. So long as this consciousness exists, it needs an instrument; without the body, consciousness cannot exist in that form. What is lost is the feeling of being a separate entity.”
“A jñani is like an unborn child: the consciousness is the child when it is born, and the child is sick. This material, objective body is sick. The jñani cannot be sick."
"Having stabilized in the consciousness, the next step is to be in a position to observe the consciousness, and all the play that is happening in the consciousness, just to understand. Attachment to the body and to the consciousness is very strong; to get rid of it is very difficult."
"You did not know your own existence after you were born. Nine months in the womb and for sometime afterwards that 'I am so and so' is absent. When you start recognizing your mother, then you also come to be aware of your own existence. That 'I Amness' comes sometime later.”
“Mother teaches you, in ignorance, that you are the body and you begin to believe that. Your mind also starts slowly to develop. So right from the beginning, because of ignorance, the Absolute does not know itself; and because of the body, it started knowing that it is - 'I AM'.”
“Because of the ignorance, you had to ask somebody, 'Who am I?'; otherwise, you would not have asked anybody. Even so-called incarnations such as Rama were like this, they had to be taught. The incarnations are just like you.”
“The bondage with the body came because of wrong teaching, and then the guru came and told you that you are not the body, and then you were liberated. That is why all these births are taking place. If you knew of the bondage, you would refuse the birth. But because the 'I Amness' is absent, you are trapped.”
“Because the 'I Amness' is a quality of the body, later on you come to know you are and that you are trapped. But once You know, you are liberated."
"You can watch the body, so you are not the body. You can watch the breath, so you are not the vital breath. In the same way, you are not the consciousness; but you have to become one with the consciousness.”
“As you stabilize in the consciousness, dispassion for the body and for the expressions through the body occur spontaneously. It is a natural renunciation, not a deliberate one. It does not mean that you should neglect your worldly duties; carry these out with full zest."
"Before you were 'born', could you have felt or sensed or known that you exist? A jñani is free because he sees that the body is made up of five elements and it works according to the nature of these elements. I see that body, but I am not concerned with whatever that body does. There is nothing in it with which I identify.”
“The sense of the combination of the five elements is the sense of being, of existing. It has all come simultaneously. I have no part in it.”
“Feeling that I am present depends on having a body. I am neither the body nor the conscious presence. In this body is the subtle principle 'I Am'; that principle witnesses all this. You are not the words. Words are the expression of space; they are not yours. Still further, You are not that 'I Am'.”
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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THE EXPLANATION
Yeshu'a (Jesus) and Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were spot on:
"No one shall ever see 'the kingdom of heaven.' It is within"
and
"Heaven and earth shall fade away."
and
"Heaven and hell are not geographic places
"There is no hell."
teachings which become a part of the Papal Magisterium.
