awareness only knows now - spira

Awareness Only Knows Now
~ ~ ~
These are the only two real possibilities in life:

(1) To stand as a separate inside self, which was born at a particular time and place that moves, changes, evolves and is destined to die;

(2) Or to stand as the ever-present Now, the open empty presence of awareness.

These are the only two options:

(1) To believe the separate self-image, belief and feeling, and to seem to stand as that;

(2) Or to stay close to our experience and be knowingly this ever present, never moving or changing awareness.

We say ‘I am a woman or a man’ but I-Awareness am neither. The thought, image, feeling and perception of being a woman or a man appear in me (Awareness) from time to time, and in the ultimate analysis, are made out of Awareness. But these thoughts, images, feelings and perceptions do not qualify or limit Awareness in any way; just as an image does not qualify or limit the screen on which it appears.

We may feel ‘I am sad or lonely’ but I-Awareness is never sad, lonely or any such feeling. A feeling of sadness or loneliness may appear in the open, empty space of Awareness, but that feeling doesn’t qualify Awareness Itself. Awareness doesn’t become sad when a feeling of sadness appears in it or on it.

Awareness gives its entire substance to all experience but never shares the particular quality or limitation of experience itself. So, there is no need to move away from, or to manipulate whatever thought, image, feeling or perception is appearing in any way.
The screen of Awareness on which all experience is appearing, with which it is known, and out of which it is made, is inherently free. It is pristine. It cannot be harmed or stained. It is untouchable but touches all experience intimately.

In the very midst of experience, our Self, open empty luminous Awareness, is already free, independent, and at peace, irrespective of the quality or characteristic of the particular experience that appears. There is no need to escape from any thought, image, feeling or perception, in order to discover the background of Awareness; just as we don’t need to escape from an image to see the screen.

Nothing needs to be changed. No experience of the mind, body or world need to be manipulated in any way. You/I is ever-present, aware now; is shining in full view at the heart of all experience. It is the substance of all experience, but is never qualified or limited by any particular experience.

Awareness is never touched, modified, wounded, stained or scarred by any particular experience. It cannot be harmed, destroyed, moved or changed no matter how pleasant or unpleasant the experience may be. All experience just flows through Awareness without leaving a trace; like an image that (however wonderful or awful) flows across the screen without leaving any residue of itself on it.
~ ~ ~
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Rupert Spira 

the self is everywhere

impermanent state of mind

it's me - adams

water

I am the ocean, All the worlds are like waves. This is the truth. Nothing to hold on to, Nothing to let go of, Nothing to dissolve.

forever young

leave thoughts and feelings alone

Does the rose have to declare its fragrance?
By its very nature you know it's a rose.
We do not have to go around shouting:
"I am divine, I am Brahman, I am absolute reality".
We simply have to let go. Stop fighting life.
Stop trying to make things happen.

Robert Adams

daily prayer

My new daily prayer:

There will never be more God than there is now. - never more good, wholeness, perfection, abundance than there is in this present moment.

"Thine will be done!" I'm not the doer!
I don't have free will, free choice or free ability to act. I'm the tool in Gods hand. I am being lived by a greater power that knows and cares.

Everything is preordained, so why worry? There are no mistakes.
Allow to happen whatever happens. Nothing is happening to ME. It just happens. Everything's unfolding the way it should. All is well!

Just watch but never react!
Let everything work out by itself.

Be patient and have confidence.
Surrender! Let go! Give up!

Live in a way that you do what's in front of you, so love can show you how.
I'm not on a journey to get somewhere, to become someone or achieve something. I'm simply here! It's always "now".

In this present moment there is nothing to change, nothing to fix, nothing to achieve, nothing to become, nothing to do or undo, nothing to regret, nothing to heal - just BE and accept everything the way it is.

What's wrong with right now, if you don't think about it?

That which is knowing all your thoughts, emotions and sensations is radiantly aware; it is effortlessly knowing and being. Sense it!

Everything you blame, bless it! Wish it well! Wish it its own freedom and forgive.

blasphemy - adams

[…] To think that you had a problem, that's an insult. When you believe you have a problem you are insulting God, blasphemy, think about this. For how can you say there is something wrong? What you're really saying is God or Brahman doesn't know what he's doing and there is something wrong, I'm hurting. God made a mistake, that's what you're saying. As you know it's virtually impossible for Brahman or God to make a mistake. There is no such thing in Brahman. Again Brahman occupies every corner of the universe, every nick and every cranny. Brahman is every thing and everywhere and this world is only a dream in Brahman. That's all the world is. This so-called world is a dream in Brahman. So when you're fearful, when you think something is wrong, something is not going your way, you feel hurtable, this is blasphemy. This is why you can't get rid of your problem because you keep insisting this problem is for real. Whereas in truth the only reality is Brahman. So do you see what you've been doing all of your life?

[…]
[…]

You've been reacting to TV, to the newspapers, to the dastardly things you see happening in this world, the things in your own life that are going on, you have been reacting to these things. No wonder you suffer. Some people who are new here may ask, "Why does Brahman allow this to happen in this world? Why does God allow all these dastardly things to take place? Wars, man's inhumanity to man." The answer again depends on your maturity. To the average person I will say to them, "This is God's leela, God's sport, Brahman´s play. Brahmans playing with himself and creates all these conditions," and this satisfies the people who are at this level of thinking. To others I'll say of a more mature nature, "First find out who you are then see if Brahman brings these conditions to you. In other words forget about everything. Forget about the world, your problems and find out who you are. How you relate to all of this, then see if anything matters." To a further mature person I will say, "Brahman only knows himself and nothing else exists," so the answer is determined by where you're coming from. What you can comprehend this time. And you have to be very careful how you talk to people […].

Think how you answer people. Some of you have read the books but you have not had the experience. You've never had the direct experience of the truth. Therefore you get into debates, arguments about who is right, who is wrong. What exists, what doesn't exist and try to be smart and say, "Brahman is everything. Nothing exists, everything is a dream." Wanting these people to respect you and say, "Boy he knows everything, he's smart." You're only fooling yourself. If you're not demonstrating a lot, keep silent. This is how you will grow spiritually. You will stunt your spiritual growth when you start telling people how much you know or trying to impress them with your knowledge of Advaita. The most advanced advaitan is a fool and knows nothing. There is no knowledge in Brahman. Can't you see that now? To have knowledge there has to be someone to receive it. And if there is noone left, who has knowledge? Knowledge of what? Knowledge of whom? All of the so-called knowledge is head knowledge. It's what you don't know that sets you free, not what you know! This is complete in reverse from going to school.

In school they jam all kinds of knowledge into your head and look what's become of you. Look at our politicians and great souls, so-called, who have knowledge. They create great problems in the world. Knowledge creates problems. So you really don't want knowledge. And other people they ask me, "Robert, if I only knew this I'd be so happy." I say, "Wrong, if you didn't know this you'd be happy. Remember it's how much you know, it is how much you don't know." This is very important to understand. Can you see now that most people who have become self-realized did so before they read a book. If they would have read a book before they would be complete idiots and joined a debating team. I will not say most I will say just about everybody, for centuries who have become self-realized, never read a book. Take the Rishis of old. The Rishis didn't read books. They sat under the trees in the silence, in quietness and everything was revealed to them. Now take yourself. What's revealed to you everyday, problems, situations? Stop thinking this way. Start to feel in your bones that there is only Brahman, nothing else, period […] end.

[…]

Sit in the silence and be in a state of no thought.

(silence)

-- Robert Adams, T224: You’re In Your Right Place, Right Now!

not going anywhere - spira

I Never Go Anywhere ......................................................(Rupert Spira)
~
I am on a train to Heathrow Airport on my way to the States. At least, that’s what thought says. Experience tells me that I am going nowhere. I am always in the same place-less place of experiencing; never going anywhere. Perceptions flow through Me; sights, sounds, textures, tastes and smells flow through Me. And thought arranges these into a story which says ‘I-this-collection-of-thoughts-and-sensations-called-a-body-and-a-mind is moving through the world’. But experience says no such thing. Experience says ‘All these flow through Me’.

Buildings, wires, trains, sounds, sights; all these are moving through Me. I am not moving through them. Thought says ‘I am moving forward toward a place or a location or an object’. But experience tells me that I am always in the same place-less place of experiencing; that all things come to Me…, I don’t go to them. Experience comes towards Me, I don’t go towards it. I remain eternally present in the dimension-less, place-less place of experiencing…, never going anywhere, never going towards an object or another. Just being pure sensitivity, pure openness that allows all experience to be just as it is; coming to Me, flowing through Me, dissolving into Me. But I-this-openness, this availability, this sensitivity never going anywhere.

Thought says that ‘I am entering the airplane’ but experience tells me that the airplane is entering Me. My only knowledge of this airplane at the moment is a visual perception, and this perception comes to Me, arises in Me, takes place in Me; I don’t take place in it. I am the openness, the emptiness, the pure availability which allows this perception to take place…, the open space in which it appears, and with which it is known…, and ultimately, out of which this perception is made.

Thought says that ‘I am 30,000 feet up in the sky’ but experience says no such thing. For experience, there is a collection of sights, sounds and textures strung together by thought to form a story-line that seems to describe my experience. But I have no actual experience of being 30,000 feet up in the sky inside an airplane. I have no experience of being ‘somewhere’. All ‘somewheres’ are made out of Me, appear in Me. I don’t appear in them. My only knowledge of the inside of an airplane is the current perception. My only knowledge of 30,000 feet in the sky is a perception plus a thought. Experience knows no such thing. Without reference to memory, I would have no idea that I was inside an airplane or 30,000 feet up in something called a sky. All these are concepts that thought super-imposes onto the raw intimacy of my experience. The raw intimacy of my experience is that I am always (in fact, not ‘always’ [as] in time but) eternally present Now…, not located in a place…, located in the dimension-less presence of my own Being.

Thought says that ‘We have landed and are moving at a terrific speed’ but I-pure-experiencing know no such thing. A series of abstract, meaningless perceptions flow through Me. It is only by referring to memory that thought interprets these abstracts images and makes out of them an idea of a runway, an airplane landing, terrific speed, etc. I am not going anywhere.

Experience for me has no particular meaning. It is just what it is, from moment to moment.

And finally, thought says that ‘I have arrived’. But for experience, there is no arriving, just as there is no leaving. I-this-open-emptiness, this pure-sensitivity-and-availability, this open-empty-Knowing…, I never go anywhere. I never leave home. I never come back to home. I always simply remain in Myself, as Myself…, taking the shape of the full range of experience…, but never becoming anything other than Myself…,
remaining in Myself, as Myself…,
Knowing-Being Myself alone.
~ ~ ~
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Rupert Spira
“I Never Go Anywhere” 

space spira

Non-Local Phenomena
~ ~ ~
R: The space of this room and the space of your kitchen at home are the same space. And yet there can be private objects; an object in this room (or a person, relatively speaking) cannot see what’s happening in your kitchen, or in New York or London. And we think that because of that, because the people in this space can’t see what’s happening in that space, (in other words, because the people are private, the objects are private and limited) therefore the space in which they appear must also share their limits; in other words, they must be private, too. That’s the mistake we make.

When we think of it in space, it makes sense. The tree in this garden is appearing in the same space as the tree in a garden in New York. That doesn’t mean the tree here can see the tree in New York, but just because it can’t see it doesn’t mean that it’s appearing in a different space.

Why do you think that your thoughts appear in a different Awareness from my thoughts? Is there any evidence at all to suggest that they are? …, that they appear in different space? The thoughts are private; sure. But the Awareness in which they appear…, do the thoughts tell us anything about that Awareness? What do the thoughts tell us about Awareness? Absolutely nothing. We presume…, we believe thoughts when thoughts tell us ‘Because I-this-thought am private, therefore the Awareness with which I am known must also share my qualities (in other words, ‘It must be private and limited, like me, like ‘the thought-that-I-am’.)

Q: Or rather that one Awareness should be aware of all thoughts.

R: How do you know it isn’t? [Silence] You’re getting a headache?

Q: Can you say some more about that?

R: Take a thought that you had at exactly 3 minutes past 12:00 yesterday. What were you thinking of? [Silence] No idea. Nor do I.

But do you have any doubt that the Awareness that knew the thought you were having this time yesterday was not the same Awareness that knows the current thought? It was known by you, yes? And the thought you had a week ago was known by the same you, the same I, the same Awareness that is knowing this thought. Yes?

The fact that there is a forgetting in time doesn’t imply that the thought that appeared a week ago was known by a different Awareness. There can be a forgetting in time. Yes?

Why can’t there be a forgetting across space as well?
A similar mechanism could take place across space.

In other words, your thoughts…, you don’t know in your thoughts what another thought..., you can’t see another thought. That’s due to the mechanism of your mind, due to the limits of your mind. It’s not due to the limits of Awareness.

The mechanism of your mind…, I mean, what would it be like now for you to experience your thought and my thought simultaneously? [Silence] Could you do that? Is a human mind [capable]…?

Q: Seven billion thoughts.

R: Just try having two thoughts at the same time. Just try now and have two thoughts. Can you do it? [Silence] No, it’s not possible for the human mind to take two thoughts at the same time. It’s a limitation of the human mind. In fact, it’s impossible for us to even imagine having two thoughts at the same time. That is a limit of the human mind. For a different kind of being it might be possible; we can’t even imagine having two thoughts at the same time. But why not?

Q: A mind reader.

R: But even a mind reader who would know somebody else’s thought…, they couldn’t be having their own thought at the same time. In fact, their own thought would be the other person’s thought. How would they know it was the other person’s thoughts? Because they would be appearing in them, in their thought.

In fact, how do you know that you’re not having the thought that your next-door neighbor is having? It would only appear to you as your own experience (in other words, it would appear to you as your own thought). And in fact, many of us have this understanding. Very often in friendships, intimate friendships, you think of something out of the blue…, you haven’t thought about it for months, and your friend (not necessarily your intimate partner, it could be anyone, but it often happens in close connections) …, your friend mentions the person that you were thinking of, that you hadn’t thought of for three years. I’m sure that these kinds of experiences are familiar. How do we know that that very occurrence isn’t an occurrence of what we’re talking about…, that it’s somebody else’s thought filtering into your mind and being experienced as your own mind, as your own thought?

Wouldn’t that make sense, if Awareness was one? Why couldn’t there be one Awareness with billions of thoughts going around in it?

After all, there’s one space with billions of objects going around in it. Is that so strange; the thought of one space with lots of objects in it? Is that strange? No. Because we’ve been conditioned to think ‘Yes, space is one and there are billions of objects that all appear in it’.

We just haven’t been conditioned to think like that about Awareness. But why not? Why not?
Especially when there is nothing in our experience to suggest that it is not the case. There’s nothing in our experience to suggest that Awareness is limited or separate.

[Silence]

Q: So, are you saying also that the instrument, the body, is the limitation? … that’s why I can’t see seven billion… sights?

R: Yes, the human mind is designed to have a very, very narrow range of possibilities. We think that the human mind is designed to see all there is…, because by definition, all we see is available for the human mind.

But who knows? We have five senses, but imagine if we had a sixth sense, or I mean, a seventh sense? Imagine; what would it be? A sight, a sound, a taste, a texture, a smell…, what would it be? And if we had this next sense, what would correspond to it in the world? It wouldn’t be a sight, it wouldn’t be a taste, it wouldn’t be a texture..., what would it be? We cannot even think of it.

Q: Intuition.

R: Okay, a seventh sense; beyond the range of the human mind. How do we know?

Imagine that you lived on the surface of a lake; that you were a creature that lived on the surface of a lake and that you only knew two dimensions. You were a very primitive kind of creature. You only knew forwards, backwards and sideways. You have no concept of up or down. Imagine being a creature like that. Imagine you’re swimming along…, you don’t know you’re swimming along a lake because you don’t know about water and that. You’re just on the surface; you only know front and back. And the branch of a tree dips down into the lake. [Points his finger from up to down motion] What would you experience? How would the branch dipping into the water enter your world? What would you see? You’d just see a black line. [Makes horizontal movement with this finger] And as the branch dipped further down [Points finger down] the black line would get longer [Stretches out two fingers horizontally] because the branch is thicker. Yeah? And then as the branch would go up again [Raises his finger in upward motion] the line would get smaller. [Brings two horizontal fingers closer together] And then another line would appear over here [Points one finger out to his left] that moved at a completely different rate to this line. [Puts two fingers on the other hand stretched apart to show horizontal line there] So you’d have these two different lines; totally separate from each other.

So, imagine if somebody came along and said ‘No, no, these are not two lines. They’re not lines at all. They’re braches that dip into the [water] and actually, they belong to the same tree’. [Silence] Could you think about that with your two-dimensional mind? You just could not go there. You could not conceive of a third dimension.

So, the human mind knows four dimensions; three of space and one of time. Why couldn’t there be five dimensions? Or eleven? Or a hundred? … that a different mind was able to perceive? Why not?

But the Awareness with which the two-dimensional creature knows its experience…, THAT Awareness is not limited by its mind. Its mind is limited; but NOT the Awareness with which it knows its extremely limited mind. Likewise, the human mind is very limited.

And we make this huge presumption in our culture that: ‘What we are, Awareness, shares the limits of our mind’. That is the mistake we make.

Our entire world culture is founded upon that mistake. It’s a huge presumption. In fact, we believe it, we presume it, to be so absolutely true that we don’t even realize it’s a presumption. We think it’s just the absolute truth because it’s so obvious: ‘Look. Look at all these people, each of them with their own thoughts…, therefore each of them with their own Awareness’.

We don’t stop to think: Actually, there’s no evidence for it.
~ ~ ~
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Rupert Spira
“Non-Local Phenomena”

Faith - Adams

FAITH
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There is something else that is very important for you to understand in order to become self-realized, and that is faith.

You have to have faith in something that you yet do not understand. Faith is a powerful tool you use to climb the ladder to self-realization. 
You have to have faith in yourself, 
faith in the teaching, 
faith in the teacher, 
faith that something wonderful is about to happen to you.

Yet I meet so many people that are so dogmatic, opinionated in their views. They have doubts, suspicions, all kinds of negative symptoms going through them, and they want to become self-realized. It is true you can go a long way with all of your bad habits. But I say to you, you can never awaken fully until you give them up, and faith helps you to give them up.

There's a story about Makunda, one of the rishis, sages, of old. For some reason he decided to get married. He wanted to have a child. But no matter how he tried, his wife couldn't conceive. Two years passed, and he said “I'm going to pray to Shiva," one of the Gods.

He prayed to Shiva and he said 
“Lord, your will is my will. 
I don't really know what's good for me, or what I really want. But you know what I want in my heart, and if it's right for me it will happen. If it isn't, it won't. But I have 
total faith in you that whatever happens is your will and it's good." 
He prayed like this for many years.

Finally Shiva appeared to him and said “My son, never have I seen such faith. You forgot all about yourself, about your family, and you just wanted me. So I have appeared to you. Your desire will come to pass. You will have a child, but you must make a choice. You may have a child who is a half idiot and will live a long life, or a child with a fine intellect who will live a short life. You have to choose." 
Makunda said "I will choose the latter, the one with the sharp intellect.” And Shiva said “He will live to be sixteen years old. Then he will drop his body.” Makunda accepted and the time came to have the baby, they did.

And at a very young age the intellect of the child was astounding. He was able to memorize all the Vedas when he was five years old. He was able to speak five languages. He was an astounding poet, writer. As he grew older his father became sadder and sadder. Finally he asked his father “Father, what's wrong? Why do you become so sad every time I have a birthday?" And Makunda explained to him the deal he made with Shiva. 
"You've only to live to be sixteen, and then you must go. 
The youth said “Shiva listened to you. Perhaps he'll listen to me," and he started to pray to Shiva every day. "Lord, I am yours, and do with me what you want. I have no desire. I know only that you brought me here, and when you're ready you will take me back. Do with me as you will. Your will, not mine, be done. I am yours." And again he said that prayer every day for a year. 
Finally Shiva appeared to him also and said “My son, you have the faith of your father. When someone prays to me thus, I have no option but to help him. So because of your faith, when you reach the age of sixteen, you will stay at that age forever."

Now the moral of that story is the faith. Remember, Makunda was very advanced spiritually, and yet he had faith in a power, a presence, that he didn't see or feel. He surrendered to that power and that presence. That's what it takes for us to awaken.

This is why people like Ramana Maharshi always said that devotion, faith and self-inquiry are the same thing. You can't just have dry self-inquiry. You have to feel love. You have to feel devotion. You have to put God first. Unless you put God first you're going to just have dry words, and the words will give you a sharp intellect. You will be able to recite all sorts of things, memorize books, hear lectures and remember them, yet you will never really awaken. 
This is why sometimes Advaita Vedanta can be dangerous to some people. Yet if they really read the books on Advaita Vedanta, they'll understand that they have to develop a tremendous faith.

Think of some of the teachers that you know or heard about. Nisargadatta, he always prayed. He realized that he was 
consciousness. He was self-realized, but at the same time he chanted, he prayed, he had devotion. It sounds like a contradiction. For you may say “If someone is self-realized and he knows himself or herself to be all there is, to whom do they pray?" Try to remember that all spiritual life is a contradiction. It's a contradiction because words cannot explain it. Even when you are the self, you can pray to the self, which is you.

Ramana Maharshi always had chanting at the ashram, prayers, devotional hymns. These things are very important. 
Many westerners, who profess to be atheists, come to listen to lectures on Advaita Vedanta, and yet nothing ever 
happens in their lives. As long as you do not have devotion, faith, love, discrimination, dispassion, it will be very 
difficult to awaken.

Therefore those of you who become bored with practicing self-inquiry may become very devotional. Surrender everything. Give up your body, your thoughts, all the things that bind you, whatever problems you may believe you have. Surrender them to your favorite deity. You are emptying yourself out as you do this. Do a lot of it. Become 
humble. Have a tremendous humility. If you can just do that you will become a favorite of God and you’ll not have to search any longer.

But of course the choice is always yours. What are you chasing in life? 
What are you going after? 
What are the things that interest you? Whatever you put first in your life, that's where your heart is. All of the things that have transpired in your life up to now, forget them. Be aware all of the time that there are no mistakes. There is nothing 
from the past that can interfere with your life if you become devotional and have faith in God. You'll be automatically protected from anything. And if you have enough faith, you can totally remove all karmic aspects of your life. You can transcend all of karma. 
You can make life easier for yourself, if you have faith.

~ The Collected Works of Robert Adams Volume 1

mirror of the mind - Nisargadatta

Holy Spirit - mooji

may all be eternally absorbed
in the holy spirit
i say- may all be eternally absorbed
in the holy spirit
so be it.

where there remains
a sense of you and i
may that be eternally absorbed
in the holy spirit.

wherever there appears to be
personal identity
let that be eternally absorbed
in the holy spirit.

where there may arise
thoughts of separation from the one
let that be eternally absorbed
in the holy spirit.

may these bodies these forms
be only vessels for the holy spirit
the spirit of truth.

may all interactions
and every encounter
be only in veneration of
the holy spirit.

The Mala of God
mooji baba ॐ

now-ADAMS

Live in the moment. Can you be unhappy in the moment? The only reason, again, you're unhappy is because you're thinking of some condition or situation you don't like. True. You're thinking about something from the past or you're worried about something that's going to happen in the future. That's the only reason you're sad or unhappy. But if you learn to live in the moment, if you learn to become aware now, how can you possibly be unhappy? Because now is Bliss. Just don't think. Experience now. If you're really not thinking and you're experiencing now, you're in Bliss. Now is Reality. Now is ultimate Oneness. Now is liberation.
Sri Robert Adams

fall in love and stay

Close your eyes,
Fall in love,
Stay there.
~Rumi

nonreaction-tolle

Nonreaction is not weakness but strength. Another word for nonreaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence. 
Sri Eckhart Tolle

spira-aware

It’s very easy to check this out for yourself. Ask yourself the question now: ‘Am I aware?’

I trust the answer is ‘Yes’. Now, when you heard the question ‘Am I aware?’ you pause, you refer to your experience and as a result, you answer ‘Yes. It is my experience that I am aware’. We don’t guess it. We don’t believe it. We Know it. We know the experience of being aware, or rather we are aware of the experience of being aware.

Who is the ‘we’? When we say ‘I am aware that I am aware. I know that I am aware’. What is the ‘I’ that Knows that I am aware?

Is the I that knows that I am aware different than the I that is simply aware? In other words, is the experience of being aware known by something other than Itself? Is there another kind of awareness in you that knows the experience of being aware? Try to find these two awareness-es. One, the experience of being aware. And two, another kind of awareness that knows the experience of being aware. Can you find these two I’s…, the I that is aware, and the I that knows that I am aware?

No. It’s the same I. I am aware is our primary experience. How do we know that I am aware? Because I am aware that I am aware. And the I that is aware is the same I that Knows I am aware. In other words, Awareness Knows Itself. Awareness is not known by some other kind of mind. Awareness’ prime experience, before it knows anything else like a thought, sensation or perception…, its primary experience is to Know Itself.

But it doesn’t Know Itself as an object, in the way that it seems to know a thought, sensation or perception. In other words, it doesn’t know itself in relationship; in subject / object relationship.

The I that knows is the I that is known.

This is what the Old Testament statement “I Am that I Am” means. The statement which Ramana Maharshi once said was the clearest, highest and most refined statement of non-duality there is: “I Am that I Am”. That’s a short-hand version of ‘I am That which is aware that I am aware. I know my own Being by myself without the aid of any other agent’.

Now, what does awareness need to do in order to Know Itself? Where does it have to go?

If I were to ask you now to stand up and take a step toward yourself, what would you do? It’s like that for awareness. In order to know itself, it doesn’t have to do anything. It doesn’t have to direct its knowing towards itself.

It’s like asking ‘What does the sun have to do to illuminate itself?’ Its nature is illumination. Just by being itself, it illuminates itself. For the sun, to be itself and to illuminate itself is the same. Illuminating itself is not something that it ‘does’…, it is what it IS. It’s the same for awareness. Knowing itself is not something it has to do. Just by being itself, it knows itself.

It is too close to itself to know itself in relationship. In order to know itself in relationship, it would have to separate itself from itself; turn around and look at itself. It can’t do that; just as the sun can’t separate itself from itself, travel a million miles into the universe and then turn around and shine on itself. In order to illuminate something other than itself, the sun must direct its rays away from itself toward that other planet. But in order to know itself, it doesn’t need to shine its rays on itself. It IS the illumination of itself. It is self-shining, self-illuminating.

Likewise, Awareness, in order to know something other than itself (such as the mind, body or world, thought, sensation, perception) it must shine its knowing, shine its ‘aware-ing’ apparently away from itself towards that object…, and it does this by rising in the form of attention or the finite mind. But in order to know itself, it doesn’t need to rise as attention or the finite mind. It knows itself simply by being itself. It is self-illuminating, self-knowing, self-aware.

Please remember, I’m not talking about some extraordinary cosmic awareness that we don’t have any contact with. I’m talking about the very knowing with which each of us is now knowing our experience. In other words, Consciousness or Awareness knows itself by itself, in itself, through itself, as itself.

So, we can say from our experience that what we call I is present and aware. The experience of being aware is its irreducible nature. Everything apart from the experience of being aware can be removed from us, but the experience of being aware of itself is irreducible, indestructible.

In other words, Being and Knowing go into the essential make of ourselves.

When I say ‘Being and Knowing’ I don’t mean that these are two elements. It’s one quality, if we can call it a quality. Being-Aware or Aware-Being, written as all one word. We can say that this Aware-Being is empty; that is, empty of objects. Full of itself, but empty of objects. It has no objective quality. It is self-aware. It is not known by other kind of mind or awareness. Its nature is to be aware. And just by being itself, it knows itself.

That means for each of us to KNOW our essential nature…, is simply to be, knowingly, the presence of awareness.

That is why it is said that ‘Simply being is the highest meditation’.

We cannot know ourselves as something, as an object. We cannot direct our attention towards ourself. Attention comes from ourself, just as light comes from the sun. That attention can only be directed towards something that is not ourself, just as the sun can only shine on something that is not itself.

So, the way to know our true nature of empty awareness is to BE knowingly empty awareness.

This is a little frustrating for the object-knowing mind. But if the object-knowing mind would like to know its source in the same way that it knows other things (that is, as an object in subject / object relationship) it’s not possible.

To Know ourSelf is to BE ourSelf.
And to BE ourSelf is to Know ourSelf.

That’s why I said… ‘True meditation is a non-practice’.
~ ~ ~
.
.
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Rupert Spira

I Am I Am - Adams

Adam-Watts Wisdom

who is the you-ACIM

Who is the 'you' who are living in this world?"ACIM

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Be Your Self-Adams

Be Your Self
==========

It's difficult for most people to understand, that you can sit in a chair, and something will happen within you which will take care of all your needs, your wants. 
And everything that's going on in your life, will be taken care of in the right way.

You think you have to be the doer. 
You think, you believe, you have to run around and make things happen. Nothing can be further from the truth than this. There is a power and a presence that will take care of everything for you.

Your job is to relax, to take it easy, to be peaceful. To observe, to watch, to look, never to react. As you begin to go 
deeper within yourself, whatever you need to know will be revealed to you. Whatever you have to do will be done.

Yet what you really are has absolutely nothing to do with these things. Your true nature, Brahman, absolute intelligence, pure wisdom, sat-chit-ananda, is always available. 
It is always there. You are that.

To see your true self, and to feel your true self, and to be your true self, you simply have to negate everything else in 
this world. By negate everything in this world, I mean you have to look at a situation and never react to it, and 
realize this is not you. 
Good things, bad things, whatever you call good and bad, they're all the same. 
They are not you. 
You are not that. 
You are absolute freedom. 
You have nothing to do with anything.

The world appears like a dream. 
It comes and it goes. 
You know by now that everything is subject to the law of change in this world, in this universe. Everything is going to change whether you like it or not. 
Why be disappointed? 
Why be upset? 
Change is the nature of living, yet what you really are, your real nature, can never 
change.

Identify with your real self. 
Again, how do you do this? 
By not identifying with the world. 
When you do not identify with person, place or thing, you are automatically identifying with yourself, and then you become your self. In other words you become your self by not being yourself. 
You have to awaken, now. And let go of the dream world.

Many of you are so concerned with your future. You're so worried about your past. You have all sorts of plans in your mind. You're conditioned to believe this, to believe that. 
This is what is keeping you back from waking up. 
You must let go, in its entirety, of any hold the world has on you. 
You have to stand naked before God.

In the last analyses you have to be your self without the help of books, teachers, systems, governments, religions. You have to step out of that rut of your conditioning. Become totally unconditioned, as if you were just born. Reading too many books simply adds to the confusion.

As you begin to dive deep within yourself, without the help from books, from teachers, you make mistakes in the 
beginning. As you learn to dive deeper within yourself, as you learn to go within, those mistakes are good, for they 
push you forward. Never judge yourself. Never put yourself down. Never believe that this is too hard for you, or you 
have too much bad karma, or something is holding you back. 
Nothing can be further from the truth.

The only thing that is holding you back are your thoughts. Get rid of your thoughts and you'll be home free.
Quiet your mind. 
Keep yourself still and leave the world alone. When I say leave the world alone it becomes confusing somewhat. I mean mentally. Keep your mind empty and your body will do things that it came to this earth to do.

Your body will not sit still all the time and do nothing. But you can be still in your mind and be thought free. No 
judgments, no fears, no bewilderment, no apprehensions. Not thinking about tomorrow, forgetting about yesterday, 
living in the now. Being spontaneous and leaving the world alone. 
It's not hard living that way.

Put a stop to your thoughts by inquiring 
“To whom do these thoughts come?" 
by observation, by being the witness. 
As you become the witness to your thoughts your thoughts will slow down. 
It is only when you go along with what your thoughts tell you, by feeling something. In other words, your thoughts may bring some negative condition to you. And so instead of just being the witness and just observing, you react. 
You react with fear, with anger, with hate, all sorts of emotions. 
This is what pulls you down. 
This is what keeps you embedded in maya, in the mortal dream.

Begin to take hold of your thoughts. Grab them. Watch them. Observe them. Inquire from where they came. Again as you do this process your thoughts will subside. This is the way to stop your mind, by not paying attention to it. 
However it appears difficult to some people. Yet it's not that difficult at all. You just simply remember, every time 
you think, the thought is nonsense. It makes no difference what it is. You do not get caught up in it. You observe, 
you watch yourself thinking, like a third party. You're observing, you're watching the thoughts. Then they do not come back as strong anymore. They become weaker and weaker.

But if you're like most people you get caught up in your thoughts. As many of you know, one thought leads to another thought, leads to another thought and another thought, and there is a whole story going on in your mind. 
And you feel it in your emotions and you take action. That's how the average person lives. But I am saying grab hold of it. Stop it before it mixes into your emotional system.

Now it makes no difference what the thought is. The thought can be good or bad. It can be about the past or about the future. It makes no difference what the thought is. 
You have to put a stop to your thinking. That's the only way you're going to become free and liberated. There is 
nothing else you can do to become liberated than to stop your thinking. 
Liberation of course is your very nature.

When you stop your thinking the outer shell melts away and your real nature, which has always been, becomes self evident. So do not feel the world, feel other people, feel the grass or the mountains. Rather be yourself. For after all, you know by now you are the world. You are the mountains. You are the grass. You are the sky. You are others. It all comes out of your own mind. You give birth to the universe. You 
create God in your own image. You create angels and you create solar systems, various planes where you go after 
you die. You create all these things in your own mind. For where else would they come from, except your own thinking?

Vehemently make up your mind that you're going to take complete control of yourself. Start from now. Say to yourself 
“I will never again allow my mind to rule me. I will never again allow my mind to control me. 
From this moment on, I am in charge," 
and make it your business to catch yourself when your mind begins to think. Grab it at the thought, before it starts to mix with your emotions.

There are many ways to do this again. You can grab it by inquiring 
“To whom does this come? 
Who's feeling this thought? 
Who's thinking this thought?" 
And you say “I am.” Then inquire 
“Where did the I come from? 
What is the source of the I?" 
Or you simply observe the thought. 
Watch the thought. 
Become perfectly still, and allow the 
thought to do what it wants. By just observing, the thought will not continue. It will slow down and stop. Before you 
know it you'll be free. You will awaken. 
It's that simple. It's up to you to do it.

~ The Collected Works of Robert Adams

the unknown has no limits-nisargadatta

GOD

"There is no time, no place, no state where God is absent." ACIM

Mind-Adams

Annihilating the Mind
=================

When I say to keep silence,
I do not mean just keeping quiet,
when your mind keeps thinking, thinking, thinking,
I am referring to quieting the mind.
When there is no longer any noise in your mind, when the mind becomes
quiescent, the reality appears by itself.

Why do you want to experience the reality? Because you have read in books, teachers have told you, the reality is infinite peace and wisdom, the reality is pure knowledge, the reality is immortality, and everyone wants this.
So we practice all forms of sadhana, we go and see various teachers, we read many books.

Now what all these things should lead to is the silence. After a few years it should not lead to further books, it should not lead to further running around the world, looking for masters who can give you the secret potion, so that you can become self-
realized.
It means to be quiet, to cause the mind to become totally still, not to get involved in talking, talking, talking, about nonsense, to talk very little.

Notice as you keep still this way, how thoughts enter your mind, how they begin to tell you things about yourself,
about the speaker, about the room. The thoughts tell you everything that keeps you back from achieving your realization. Thoughts can do you no good, no matter what kind of thoughts they are. They can only take you so far, confuse you.

You have to see this about yourself. You have to be totally honest with yourself, see where you are coming from, examine your feelings, your emotions.
Again, what is going through your mind. Most people cannot sit in the silence even for a second. The mind waves begin to move.

As long as your mind keeps feeding you information, you can never really awaken, for what you call the mind is merely a bundle of thoughts about the past, and about the future and about the present. That's all the mind is. The mind keeps you earthbound. That is its job, to make you part of this earth, to attach you to person, place and thing.

Therefore the wise person, from the very beginning, begins to do things to keep the mind still, to quiet the mind.
What is the highest thing you can possibly do to quiet the mind?
And the answer is nothing.
As long as you're doing something you're using the mind. Therefore the highest teaching is, do nothing.

When you learn to do nothing, the mind will stop thinking all by itself, but when you do something, the mind will accumulate more knowledge, of things that you are doing, and become ever stronger, and stronger and stronger.
Remember you are not trying to acquire more knowledge, and add on to the knowledge you already have. You want
to empty yourself totally, absolutely and completely, of all so called knowledge.

You're afraid to do this, for you think you will become a vegetable. It's hard to imagine a person with no mind. But, when you begin to realize your mind is only an accumulation of thoughts, thoughts from past lives, thoughts from this life, only thoughts, then you begin to see that the mind has to be totally transcended and transmuted.

And those of you who have been practicing sadhana for many years, have come to the point where now you can do nothing.
You no longer have to meditate.
You no longer have to practice atma-vichara.
You no longer have to practice being the witness, Vipassana meditation.
Those things are no longer necessary. They have taken you to a certain point, and here you are.
You now have absolutely nothing to do. You are free.

If you think about this aright, you will see that your body, what you call your body, will still function very well without your thoughts. This is sort of a hard one to grasp, for you have been taught you have to use your mind to function.
You've been taught that your mind uses the body to function on this earth plane.
That's how it appears. But in truth there never was a body, there never was a mind and there was never anyone to function.

When this is understood properly, you become the epitome of compassion, of loving kindness, of peace, of humility,
simply by understanding what I just said. You do not have to earn these virtues. Some of these virtues are actually
yours already, they've always been yours, compassion, loving kindness, peace, happiness. Since they are already yours and you have them already, you simply have to sit still, quiet the mind, and they'll come up to express themselves.

It's similar to the sun covered by clouds. When the sun is covered by clouds, you think there is no sun, the sun has
disappeared. Yet once the clouds dissipate, the sun shines once more with all its glory and splendor. And so it is with the mind. You have believed that the mind causes you to function, to shine, and this is not necessarily true. The mind is here to keep you earthbound.

When you stop thinking, the mind becomes the infinite, becomes God,
becomes boundless space, nirvana, pure awareness.
It doesn't really become that.
You've always been that.
The mind
merely disappears, as a mind, and your true nature is expressed.

Many people try to develop virtues before they try to remove the mind. This is impossible to do. If you have anger, fear, and many of these negative conditions, it is very difficult to make them disappear. It is very difficult to get rid of them, to transcend them. No matter what you do to try to transcend them, to try to give them up, they just becomes stronger.

It is only when you work on the removal of the mind, by quieting the mind, then all of these things we discussed, the fears, the frustrations, the anger, disappears of its own volition.
It's so easy and yet so hard.
The reason it appears hard is because you have become attached to your way of
thinking, you have been attached to person, place and thing for so many years. You're attached to your memories, to your body. This is the reason it appears difficult.

But when you begin to understand and realize there is no body,
there is no attachment,
there is only total freedom,
the mind becomes totally annihilated.

This is something you have to work with yourself. This is something you have to talk to yourself about, something you have to see for yourself.
Seeing is being.
As you begin to see the great truth, that you are the imperishable self,
the mind will automatically run away and become dissolved.

~ The Collected Works of Robert Adams

mooji-stay as awareness

Whenever mind comes, just stay as the Awareness.
Sit in This as This itself.
He, mind, will come and do everything
to get your attention and interest
—he will call you by name and play all his best cards,
but just stay as the Awareness.
Your heart begins thumping hard, a headache is coming,
but just stay as the Awareness.
This is how I want to help you,
because this is what will actually help you
to ultimate freedom.
Let’s not focus on your problems,
because there is no end to them;
in fact, the problem-game just multiplies
and keeps your false identity alive.
I want to go to the root of everything,
not to merely trim the leaves of this tree.
Through habit, attention keeps connecting
to some images in the mind
to which you give importance
and so it seems difficult to come out from that.
But come out! How?
Seeing and confirming your position
as the witness-awareness of all mind's play
and thus confirming through the direct experiencing
that you are the formless Seer
—this is how you come out.
This is the final fruit of true Satsang.

Mooji ~