SpiritAwake

The Master is the one who shows that you are light itself and that darkness never existed. Through his Grace he removes the erroneous idea that there is a state of un-enlightenment which has to be overcome.

A Master cannot be identified through his words or his actions, nothing he does or says proves or disproves his spiritual state or his qualifications to be a Master. If your mind automatically becomes quiet and peaceful in the proximity of someone else, then that may be taken to be an indication (not a proof) that this person is qualified to be a spiritual teacher. There are no other reliable signs.

One cannot realize the Self without the grace of a living Guru. While you think that you have a body, only a Guru in the body can help you. You do not find a Guru by moving from one country to another. You find one by having an intense desire for freedom.

There is no such thing as a Self-realized person. When there is no “person” the Self is realized. When there is no “person” the question of coming and going cannot arise. The body is an appearance in the Self. When the body disappears the Self remains as it always was and is. Realization is the understanding “I am not this body which comes and goes, I am that permanent, unchanging reality in which the body and all else appears”.

When the “I” which rises to claim ownership of all thoughts and actions is permanently eradicated Enlightenment remains. A still mind is just an active mind that is having a temporary rest. Enlightenment is the substratum of both states.

When you are one with your source you are plugged into an infinite supply of energy. When you no longer think “I am doing this”, the Power of Self takes over, enabling all activities to be performed with an abundance of energy. Ramana Maharshi sometimes said that the power of the Self was surging through him so strongly he couldn’t keep his head still. His head was always shaking except when he was in samadhi or when he was looking intently into a devotee’s eyes.

Open your eyes and look around you. If you still see a world outside and apart from you, you are not enlightened. Why not? The world and the one who sees it are both projections of the mind, and while that mind is there, Enlightenment is covered up. When you experience and know directly, without needing the eyes, that the world is an uncaused appearance within your own Self, you will not need to ask whether you are Enlightened or not.

There is no future, there are no people, there is no earth, there is no one seeking Enlightenment, and no one gaining it. This is the final and only Truth.

Happiness is permanent. It is always there. What comes and goes is unhappiness. If you identify with what comes and goes, you will be unhappy. If you identify with what is permanent and always there, you are happiness itself.

You are ripe for Enlightenment when you want nothing else. In order to be born as a baby you have to spend nine months getting bigger and bigger. For Enlightenment you have to get smaller and smaller until you disappear completely.

You cannot make yourself pure by any mental or physical activity. Purity is only there when thoughts are not. Truth is not very athletic. She cannot catch you if you are moving around. She can only catch you and embrace you if you stand absolutely still.

There is nothing apart from the Self which can be known and nothing in the Self which can know it. The idea of omniscience can only arise when there is a subject who has knowledge of an infinite number of objects. If there is no subject and no objects, what happens to omniscience?

Meditation is a mental activity. There is a subject, the meditator, who is manipulating or organizing objects which are thoughts. Both the subject and the objects have to disappear for Enlightenment to take place. Meditation just prolongs their existence.

People who successfully make efforts to quiet their minds are concentrating intensively on a object of thought called ‘silence’. This is not the silence of no thoughts. It is the experiencing of a mental state by intense effort. When both the effort and the thoughts cease, Enlightenment occurs.

The Buddha tried all kinds of meditation and tapas before he came to Bodhi Gaya but he didn’t get any results. When he sat under the bodhi tree, all he had was a single-minded determination that he wasn’t going to move until he got enlightened. It was his determination to be free that won him his freedom, not any of his previous practices.

In life you are whoever you imagine yourself to be. When you stop making up identities for yourself, you find out who you really are.

When you project a dream world for yourself and live in it, you also project a God who looks after it. When you stop the projection, both the world and God disappear.

The Self will always be a mystery because there can never be anything apart from it to comprehend it, analyze it or understand it.

Before Enlightenment you think, “I must chop wood, I must carry water”. Afterwards wood gets chopped, water gets carried but it’s nothing to do with you. It just happens.

If you live in the ego, you automatically set up hostile situations of “me” and the rest of the world. To defend an ego you have to be selfish and you have to fear other people because they are all threats to your well being. How can you trust anyone in a situation like that?

A person who has self-confidence and high self- esteem (what western psychologists would call a healthy ego) is no nearer to freedom than anyone else. Such a person may feel that he is happy and that he needs no fundamental changes in his life. A person who has understood that his ego is continually causing him mental trouble is more likely to look for a solution. There is no such thing as a healthy ego any more than there is a thing called a healthy disease. The ego cannot lead to freedom it can only obstruct it. Ego and freedom cannot co-exist. When ego vanishes, freedom replaces it.

Dreams are mental projections, at night you project them inside your head, during the day you project them outside your head. You dream up these worlds because you have a strong desire to enjoy them.

All your dreams are unreal even the dream you call the waking state, the only reality is the screen on which they appear. When you identify with the screen and not the pictures, you will know what is real and what is unreal.

I am neither the dreaming nor the waking state. Both states alternately appear in me. You are dreaming that I am giving satsang, but your dreams do not touch me or affect me.

The same consciousness prevails in all the states of waking, sleeping and dreaming. The appearance and disappearance of the alternating three states do not affect that consciousness, it is not conscious of the three states, they just appear and disappear within it.

All the activities that the body performs are predetermined. The only freedom you have is to choose not to identify with the body that is performing the actions. Enlightenment does not happen in time. It happens when time stops.

There is no sex in the Self. I have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and none of them held me up.

Physical activities can only produce physical results. Mental activities produce mental results. Sexual activity produces babies. Enlightenment is not produced by any of them.

True surrender is accomplished by going back to your source and discovering that there is no one to surrender and nothing to surrender.

In the Self there are no others to love or to be monogamous with. The desire for a perfect partner will always end in disappointment because there is no such thing as a perfect partner. Partnerships are always imperfect.