Words From My Scrap Book

🙏🏼🙏🏼

This.

🤔🤔

Ashtavakra Gita :

18.21
Like a leaf in the wind
the liberated one
is untethered from life--
desireless, independent, free.

18.22
For one who has transcended the world
there is no joy or sorrow.
With a stilled mind,
he lives on with no body.

18.23
One who knows Self,
whose mind is serene and spotless,
does not desire to give up anything,
nor does he miss what is not there.

18.24
His mind being in a natural state
of emptiness,
the wise one knows nothing
of honor and dishonor.
He does what comes to be done.

~~~~~~~

🙏🏼❤🌎

🙏🏼 || Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaaya Namaha || 🙏🏼

AUM NAMOH NARAYANAYA AUM

Freedom!!

Get beyond your

!! 🥦🍅🥑🥕🥒🌿🌾

🙏🙏☮️🕉️

Krishna and Arjuna were taking a stroll when they came across a Brahmin who was begging. Arjuna out of pity gave him a pouch full of gold coins. The Brahmin was overjoyed and set off for home with a romantic song in his heart and dreamy eyes. On the way, a robber looted him.

So, on the following day, he was out begging again. Arjuna was surprised to see him. On hearing his story, Arjuna felt pity again and gave him a valuable gem and made sure that the man hid it in his pocket while going home. The Brahmin hid it in an old mud pot that was lying unused for a long time in his house.

His wife had gone out to fetch water from the river. On her way back she fell down and her pot of water broke. So she went home and quietly picked up the old mud pot and went to fetch water. The Brahmin was fast asleep. The moment she lowered the pot into the river to fill it, the gem fell out. She went home totally unaware of the loss she had just caused.

The Brahmin cursed his destiny when he realised what had happened. The next day, he was back to begging again. Isn't it true that we may give something to another but we cannot change another's destiny?

But God can! Read on.

When Krishna and Arjuna heard the tearful story of the poor Brahmin, Krishna quietly gave two paisa to the Brahmin. Arjuna exclaimed, “Oh Deenabandhu! I could not redeem him of his poverty even by giving him so many gold coins and the precious gem. What difference will two paisa make? Perhaps it is his destiny that he shall always be a beggar!”

Krishna just smiled. The Brahmin too was baffled with the paltriness of Krishna's donation, especially in contrast with Arjuna's largesse.

On the way home he saw that a fisherman had just caught a fish, which was gasping for life. He felt pity for the poor creature and thought to himself, "These two paisa will not be enough to buy me even a meal. So, let me buy the fish and save its life."

The Brahmin bought the fish for two paisa and immediately put it into his begging bowl and poured water into it. He set off towards the river to release the fish. He then noticed that the fish spat out something. It was the same precious gem that Arjuna had given him that he had hid in the mud pot!

The Brahmin was overjoyed. In his ecstasy he exclaimed, "I found it, I found it…" Coincidentally the robber who had looted him of his pouch full of gold coins was sitting just there. He thought the Brahmin had recognised him and was shouting, "I found him, I found him…" Fearing that he would be taken to the king's court and punished, he begged the Brahmin to pardon him and also returned the gold coins.

Arjuna was astounded! He said, "Krishna, what I could not achieve by giving so much, You have achieved by giving so little! What is this mystery?"

Krishna smiled His beautiful, bewitching smile and said, "Both times when you gave to him, he thought only of his personal comforts and the betterment of his life. When I gave him, he thought about the woes of another living creature. Truly speaking, when someone shows sympathy and helps someone, he is doing My work. When he is doing My work, how can I not do his?"

🕉

Be Kind! ❤️❤️🙏

Written by A Small Fiction
Illustrated by The Oatmeal

Happy Holidays to you all! ❤️☮️🥳

- Shaykh Sa'adi Shirazi

https://nisargayoga.org/

❤️

* * * The Unknown is the Home of the Real * * *

Questioner: Who is the Guru and who is the supreme Guru?
Maharaj: All that happens in your consciousness is your Guru.
And pure awareness beyond consciousness is the supreme Guru.

Q: My Guru is Sri Babaji. What is your opinion of him?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: What a question to ask!
The space in Bombay is asked
what is its opinion of the space in Poona.
The names differ, but not the space.
The word ‘Babaji’ is merely an address.
Who lives under the address?
You ask questions when you are in trouble.
Enquire who is giving trouble and to whom.

Q: I understand everybody is under the obligation to realize. Is it his duty, or is it his destiny?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Realization is of the fact that you are not a person.
Therefore,
it cannot be the duty of the person whose destiny is to disappear.
Its destiny is the duty of him
who imagines himself to be the person.
Find out who he is and the imagined person will dissolve.
Freedom is from something.
What are you to be free from?
Obviously, you must be free from the person,
you take yourself to be,
for it is the idea you have of yourself that keeps you in bo***ge.

Q: How is the person removed?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: By determination.
Understand that it must go and wish it to go -it shall go
if you are earnest about it.
Somebody, anybody, will tell you that
you are pure consciousness, not a body-mind.
Accept it as a possibility and investigate earnestly.
You may discover that it is not so,
that you are not a person bound in space and time.
Think of the difference it would make!

Q: If I am not a person, then what am I?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Wet cloth looks, feels, smells differently as long as it is wet.
When dry it is again the normal cloth.
Water has left it and who can make out that it was wet?
Your real nature is not like what you appear to be.
Give up the idea of being a person, that is all.
You need not become what you are anyhow.
There is the identity of what you are and
there is the person superimposed on it.
All you know is the person, the identity - which is not a person-
you do not know, for you never doubted, never asked yourself the crucial question - ‘Who am I’.
The identity is the witness of the person and
sadhana consists in shifting the emphasis from the superficial and changeful person
to the immutable and ever-present witness.

Q: How is it that the question ‘Who am I’ attracts me little? I prefer to spend my time in the sweet company of saints.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Abiding in your own being is also holy company.
If you have no problem of suffering and release from suffering,
you will not find the energy and persistence needed for self-enquiry.
You cannot manufacture a crisis. It must be genuine.

Q: How does a genuine crisis happen?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
It happens every moment,
but you are not alert enough.
A shadow on your neighbour’s face, the immense and
all-pervading sorrow of existence is a constant factor in your life,
but you refuse to take notice.
You suffer and see others suffer, but you don’t respond.

Q: What you say is true, but what can I do about it? Such in-deed is the situation. My helplessness and dullness are a part of it.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: Good enough.
Look at yourself steadily - it is enough.
The door that locks you in, is also the door that lets you out.
The ‘I am’ is the door.
Stay at it until it opens.
As a matter of fact, it is open, only you are not at it.
You are waiting at the non-existent painted doors,
which will never open.

Q: Many of us were taking drugs at some time, and to some extent. People told us to take drugs in order to break through into higher levels of consciousness. Others advised us to have
abundant s*x for the same purpose. What is your opinion in the matter?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
No doubt,
a drug that can affect your brain can also affect your mind,
and give you all the strange experiences promised.
But what are all the drugs compared to the drug
that gave you this most unusual experience of being born and living in sorrow and fear,
in search of happiness, which does not come, or does not last.
You should enquire into the nature of this drug and
find an antidote.
Birth, life, death - they are one.
Find out what had caused them.
Before you were born, you were already drugged.
What kind of drug was it?
You may cure yourself of all diseases,
but if you are still under the influence of the primordial drug,
of what use are the superficial cures?

Q: Is it not karma that causes rebirth?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
You may change the name, but the fact remains.
What is the drug which you call karma or destiny?
It made you believe yourself to be what you are not.
What is it, and can you be free of it?
Before you go further you must accept,
at least as a working theory,
that you are not what you appear to be,
that you are under the influence of a drug.
Then only you will have the urge and the patience to examine the symptoms and search for their common cause.
All that a Guru can tell you is:
‘My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken about yourself.
You are not the person you think yourself to be.’
Trust nobody, not even yourself.
Search, find out, remove and reject every assumption till you reach the living waters and the rock of truth.
Until you are free of the drug,
all your religions and sciences, prayers and Yogas
are of no use to you,for based on a mistake, they strengthen it.
But if you stay with the idea that you are not the body nor the mind,
not even their witness, but altogether beyond,
your mind will grow in clarity, your desires -in purity,
your actions - in charity and
that inner distillation will take you to another world,
a world of truth and fearless love.
Resist your old habits of feeling and thinking;
keep on telling yourself:
‘No, not so, it cannot be so; I am not like this,
I do not need it, I do not want it’,
and a day will surely come when the entire structure of error and
despair will collapse and the ground will be free for a new life.
After all, you must remember,
that all your preoccupations with yourself are only during waking hours and
partly in your dreams; in sleep all is put aside and forgotten.
It shows how little important is your waking life, even to yourself,
that merely lying down and closing the eyes can end it.
Each time you go to sleep you do so
without the least certainty of waking up and yet you accept the risk.

Q: When you sleep, are you conscious or unconscious?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: I remain conscious,
but not conscious of being a particular person.

Q: Can you give us the taste of the experience of self-realization?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Take the whole of it!
It is here for the asking.
But you do not ask.
Even when you ask, you do not take.
Find out what prevents you from taking.

Q: I know what prevents - my ego.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Then get busy with your ego - leave me alone.
As long as you are locked up within your mind,
my state is beyond your grasp.

Q: I find I have no more questions to ask.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Were you really at war with your ego,
you would have put many more questions.
You are short of questions
because you are not really interested.
At present you are moved by the pleasure-pain principle
which is the ego.
You are going along with the ego, you are not fighting it.
You are not even aware how totally you are swayed
by personal considerations.
A man should be always in revolt against himself, for the ego,
like a crooked mirror, narrows down and distorts.
It is the worst of all the tyrants, it dominates you absolutely.

Q: When there is no ‘I’ who is free?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: The world is free of a mighty nuisance. Good enough.

Q: Good for whom?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: Good for everybody.
It is like a rope stretched across the street, it snarls up the traffic.
Roll up, it is there, as mere identity, useful when needed.
Freedom from the ego-self is the fruit of self-enquiry.

Q: There was a time when I was most displeased with myself. Now I have met my Guru and I am at peace, after having surrendered myself to him completely.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
If you watch your daily life you will see that
you have surrendered nothing.
You have merely added the word ‘surrender’
to your vocabulary and
made your Guru into a peg to hang your problems on.
Real surrender means doing nothing,
unless prompted by the Guru.
You step, so to say, aside and let your Guru live your life.
You merely watch and wonder
how easily he solves the problems which to you seemed insoluble.

Q: As I sit here, I see the room, the people. I see you too. How does it look at your end? What do you see?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: Nothing.
I look, but I do not see in the sense of creating images clothed
with judgements.
I do not describe nor evaluate.
I look. I see you, but neither attitude nor opinion cloud my vision.
And when I turn my eyes away,
my mind does not allow memory to linger;
it is at once free and fresh for the next impression.

Q: As I am here, looking at you, I cannot locate the event in space and time. There is something eternal and universal about the transmission of wisdom that is taking place. Ten thousand years earlier, or later, make no difference — the event itself is timeless.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Man does not change much over the ages.
Human problems remain the same and call for the same answers.
Your being conscious of what you call transmission of wisdom shows that wisdom has not yet been transmitted.
When you have it, you are no longer conscious of it.
What is really your own, you are not conscious of.
What you are conscious of is neither you nor yours.
Yours is the power of perception, not what you perceive.
It is a mistake to take the conscious to be the whole of man.
Man is the unconscious, conscious and the super-conscious,
but you are not the man.
Yours is the cinema screen, the light as well as the seeing power, but the picture is not you.

Q: Must I search for the Guru, or shall I stay with whomever I have found?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
The very question shows that you have not yet found one.
As long as you have not realized, you will move from Guru to Guru,
but when you have found yourself, the search will end.
A Guru is a milestone.
When you are on the move, you pass so many milestones.
When you have reached your destination,
it is the last alone that mattered.
In realty all mattered at their own time and none matters now.

Q: You seem to give no importance to the Guru. He is merely an incident among others.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
All incidents contribute, but none is crucial.
On the road each step helps you to reach your destination, and each is as crucial as the other,
for each step must be made, you cannot skip it.
If you refuse to make it, you are stuck!

Q: Everybody sings the glories of the Guru, while you compare him to a milestone. Don’t we need a Guru?

Maharaj: Don’t we need a milestone? Yes and no.
Yes, if we are un-certain, no if we know our way.
Once we are certain in ourselves,
the Guru is no longer needed, except in a technical sense.
Your mind is an instrument, after all,
and you should know how to use it.
As you are taught the uses of your body,
so you should know how to use your mind.

Q: What do I gain by learning to use my mind?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
You gain freedom from desire and fear,
which are entirely due to wrong uses of the mind.
Mere mental knowledge is not enough.
The known is accidental, the unknown is the home of the real.
To live in the known is bo***ge, to live in the unknown is liberation.

Q: I have understood that all spiritual practice consists in the elimination of the personal self. Such practice demands iron de-termination and relentless application. Where to find the integrity and energy for such work?

Maharaj: You find it in the company of the wise.

Q: How do I know who is wise and who is merely clever?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
If your motives are pure, if you seek truth and nothing else,
you will find the right people.
Finding them is easy, what is difficult is to trust them and take full advantage of their advice and guidance.

Q: Is waking state more important for spiritual practice than sleep?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
On the whole we attach too much importance, to the waking state.
Without sleep the waking state would be impossible;
without sleep one goes mad or dies; why attach so much importance to waking consciousness,
which is obviously dependent on the unconscious?
Not only the conscious but the unconscious as well should be taken care of in our spiritual practice.

Q: How does one attend to the unconscious?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Keep the ‘I am’ in the focus of awareness,
remember that you are,
watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part.
Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious.
Once free to mingle, the two become one and
the one becomes all.
The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost,
only its limitations are lost. It is transfigured, and becomes the real Self, the sadguru,
the eternal friend and guide.
You cannot approach it in worship.
No external activity can reach the inner self; worship and prayers remain on the surface only;
to go deeper medi-tation is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking.
In the beginning the attempts are irregular,
then they recur more often, become regular,
then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered.

Q: Obstacles to what?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: To self-forgetting.

Q: If worship and prayers are ineffectual why do you worship daily, with songs and music, the image of your Guru!

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Those who want it, do it.
I see no purpose in interfering.

Q: But you take part in it.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: Yes, it appears so.
But why be so concerned with me?
Give all your attention to the question:
‘What is it that makes me conscious?’,
until your mind becomes the question itself and cannot think of anything else.

Q: All and sundry are urging me to meditate. I find no zest in meditation, but I am interested in many others things; some I want very much and my mind goes to them; my attempts at meditation are so half-hearted, what am I to do?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Ask yourself: ‘to whom it all happens?’
Use everything as an opportunity to go within.
Light your way by burning up obstacles in the intensity of awareness.
When you happen to desire or fear,
it is not the desire or fear that are wrong and must go,
but the person who desires and fears.
There is no point in fighting desires and fears
which may be perfectly natural and justified;
it is the person,
who is swayed by them,
that is the cause of mistakes, past and future.
This person should be carefully examined and its falseness seen;
then its power over you will end.
After all, it subsides each time you go to sleep.
In deep sleep you are not a self-conscious person,
yet you are alive.
When you are alive and conscious,
but no longer self-conscious, you are not a person any more.
During the waking hours you are, as if,
on the stage, playing a role,
but what are you when the play is over?
You are what you are;
what you were before the play began you remain when it is over.
Look at yourself as performing on the stage of life.
The performance may be splendid or clumsy, but you are not in it,
you merely watch it; with interest and sympathy, of course,
but keeping in mind all the time that you are only watching while the play life is going on.

Q: You are always stressing the cognition aspect of reality. You hardly ever mention affection, and will — never?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Will, affection, bliss, striving and enjoying are
so deeply tainted with the personal, that they cannot be trusted.
The clarification and purification needed at the very start of the journey, only awareness can give.
Love and will shall have their turn,
but the ground must be prepared.
The sun of awareness must rise first all else will follow.

~ from I AM THAT book

DIRECT EXPERIENCE AND THE PATH - Drukama Radio™ Ep42
LISTEN with transcript ⮞ https://drukama.com/direct-experience-and-the-path/

Today Daishi and Eali discuss the importance of direct experience on the spiritual path. What is direct experience? How can we develop foundational meditative skills to facilitate these experiences? What are the benefits of understanding through direct experience?

[EXTRACT]

"Most people, they have trouble for five minutes if there's not some stimulating conversation or some tablet or phone or something entertaining them. And that means that they're a slave to the world outside... And that isn't a way to live, we have to be able to dictate that ourselves. So when I want to be happy, when I want to be contented, when I'm going to be peaceful I just decide. And it doesn't matter what's happening out there because I've already cut through the energies of the mind.
..If we're just trying to fight the mind ourselves it's a long path. If we're just trying to 'be present, be present,' it's going to take a long time to cut through all of those habitual tendencies because there are many, they're legion. So there are other ways of getting up into that energy and being able to work with it. Those are where the Paths can differ. You can have some Paths that are really aggressive and quick, as they say, 'Liberation in this lifetime', or enlightenment in this lifetime."

- Daishi Nagiyah