It comes

The point comes when you stop looking to the world for answers.

"Remaining free from clinging to everything that arises in the mind,
represents the highest path, leaving nothing higher to aspire to.
When the mind does not cling to every emerging appearance, the
stream of this mind becomes free from any stain of deluded discrimination."
- Gampopa

From the book, "Mahamudra, The Quintessence of Mind and Meditation,"

published by Shambhala

posted by Dainen Kelly to Daily Dharma

Wholeness

Self-Enquiry: A Distinction ~ from the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

We seem not to see that, as we march towards the next anticipated "spiritual" high, the treasure that we seek is to be discovered not in where we are going, but within the simple nature of the very footsteps that we take. In our rush to find a better situation in time, we trample over the flower of beingness that presents itself in every moment.

- Tony Parsons

Sri Ramana Maharshi - 225 Spiritual Truths

Simply keep quiet,
let things happen in front of you,
and enjoy this universe which is offered to you.

Don't make any effort and don't even think
and you will know who you are!
Don't think of the past or the future
and within this you will find
what you never have found before.

But few people do this and instead waste their lives
in practice which only expands their ego
as they boast of all the ways that they please the Divine.

So simply Be quiet, make no effort
and you will know who you are!

- Papaji

In discovering that you have no real control
over your choices, your heart will be set free.

However, if you believe that you have even one
single choice in life, that's enough to keep you
fully trapped and into taking the Game very
seriously.

There's an old song that says, "Freedom's just
another word for nothing left to lose."

In truth, though, freedom's just another word
for nothing left to CHOOSE.

- Chuck Hillig

To meditate you don't have to have any
objective, which means you don't have
any expectation at all. In these moments
you don't find Reality, the Reality finds
you. Just sit quietly for a moment.


- Ramesh S. Balsekar

Self-enquiry is the direct path to Self-realization
or enlightenment. The only way to make the mind
cease its outward activities is to turn it inward. By
steady and continuous investigation into the nature
of the mind, the mind itself gets transformed into
That to which it owes its own existence.

- Ramesh S. Balsekar

The mind is led to perfect quiescence in the Heart through the Quest of the Real Self-- in the form of (the question) "Who am I?"--when the world-appearance ceases. That Being, which then shines as "I AM," is the Real Self.

Renunciation is always in the mind, not in
going to forests or solitary places, or
giving up one's duties. The main thing is to
see that the mind does not turn outward but
inward. It does not really rest with a man
whether he goes to this place or that or
whether he gives up his duties or not. All
these events happen according to destiny.
All the activities that the body is to go
through are determined when it first comes
into existence. It does not rest with you to
accept or reject them. The only freedom you
have is to turn your mind inward and renounce
activities there.

- Sri Ramana Maharshi

My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I have detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with them.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj,posted to ANetofJewels

Laughing at Reality

Attention to one's own Self, which is ever shining as 'I', the one undivided and pure reality, is the only raft with which the individual, who is deluded by thinking 'I am the body', can cross the ocean of unending births.'

Reality is simply the loss of ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because the ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and reality will shine forth by itself. This is the direct method, whereas all other methods are done only by retaining the ego. In those paths there arise so many doubts and the eternal question 'Who am I?' remains to be tackled finally. But in this method the final question is the only one and it is raised from the beginning. No sadhanas are necessary for engaging in this quest.

There is no greater mystery than this — that being the reality we seek to gain reality. We think that there is something hiding our reality and that it must be destroyed before the reality is gained. It is ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your past efforts. That which will be on the day you laugh is also here and now.

~Ramana Maharshi in 'Be As You Are' ed. David Godman

If we investigate closely, we just might find that experiences do not happen
through the body. That the body is not something that serves as a conduit
for experience-it is ITSELF nothing more than experiences. It is
experienced as sensations, feelings and thoughts. And where do these
sensations, feelings and thoughts happen? Not in or through the body, not
anywhere in fact. Totally non-localized. Any localization is itself just
an experience.

Greg Goode http://heartofnow.com

“I am That I Am” sums up the whole truth; the method is summarized in “Be Still.” - Ramana Maharshi (d. 1950)

A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm andsteady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Sri Ramana Maharshi
Interactive Timline

"...our normal conception of self is a false self. What many people see as themselves is not their true selves."
~ Eric Putkonen ("True Self" - January 2006, Edge Life Magazine online)

Towards Truth

Yes, It is I, duwbryd. I found the following on the computer, in an email. Nothing here in this blog is original to myself, it is either found or rediscovered. I really enjoyed this. Always nice to hear someone speaking or writing their truth. Parts of it are not especially clear to me but it is a very revealing statement anyways.
some reflections on the only question

It’s been dawning on me recently, the past week or so, that it’s impossible to know the truth. I’ve read that before, and believed it, and could argue it as well, intellectually, but now I feel it in that region called my soul, my heart.

I can never know the truth with my mind.

The mind creates the world I know. It’s a binary thing, an organically computerized virtual world, created, for the most part, over the eons, for survival.

But science tells us the world is energy (although most of us still live in that older scientific paradigm of Newtonian physics). And we have learned to sense that energy in a way that allows us to survive in the best manner possible.

So the mind has created a virtual reality of certain differentiations (different than any other life form’s [say, for example, a dog’s black and white world replete with a myriad of smells and high-pitched sounds no human could ever detect], dualities, a binary code, from the one energetic field of universe.

And so, it is, our mind is a thing of dualities that can never know the world of non-duality, the universe, truth.

So, the question is, then, how can we know the truth, if the mind can never know the truth? The question would appear to be a dead end. But the question is based on a false premise, or, at the least, on a premise that has yet to be proved: I am my mind.

Am I my mind? Or, in other words, am I something else, other than my mind, that can know the truth?

The question to be asked, as Ramana Maharshi has asked, is “Who am I?” This question when asked ruthlessly will lead to the realization, that beneath my thoughts, emotions, senses, and feelings, there is an underlying presence. Awareness. Primordial existence.

Therefore I am not my mind. I am not my body. I am not my senses and emotions. I just am.

The truth.

Truth According To Puppetji, Who Am I?

Instructions for Who AM I by Ramana Maharshi

"How will the mind become quiescent?"
Sri Ramana Maharshi replies:
"By the inquiry 'Who am I?'.
The thought 'Who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts,
and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre,
it will itself in the end get destroyed.
Then, there will arise Self-Realization."

The questioner asks: "What is the means for constantly holding on to the thought 'Who am I?'"

Sri Ramana Maharshi replies:
"When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them,
but should inquire: 'To whom do they arise?'
It does not matter how many thoughts arise.
As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence,
'To whom has this thought arisen?'.
The answer that would emerge would be 'To me".
Thereupon if one inquires 'Who am I?',
the mind will go back to its source;
and the thought that arose will become quiescent.
With repeated practice in this manner,
the mind will develop skill to stay in its source."

The questioner asks:
"Are there no other means for making the mind quiescent?"

Sri Ramana Maharshi replies:
"Other than inquiry, there are no adequate means.
If through other means it is sought
to control the mind, the mind will appear
to be controlled, but will again go forth."

The questioner asks:
"How long should inquiry be practised?"

Sri Ramana Maharshi replies:

"As long as there are impressions of objects in the mind,
so long the inquiry 'Who am I?' is required.
As thoughts arise they should be destroyed
then and there in the very place of their origin,
through inquiry.
As long as there are enemies within the fortress,
they will continue to sally forth;
if they are destroyed as they emerge,
the fortress will fall into our hands."

The questioner asks:
"Is it not possible for God and the Guru
to effect the release of a soul?"

Sri Ramana Maharshi replies:
"God and Guru will only show the way to release;
they will not by themselves take the soul to the state of release.
Each one should by his own effort pursue the path shown by
God or Guru and gain release."

The questioner asks:
"Is it any use reading books for those who long for release?"

Sri Ramana Maharshi answers:
"In order to quiet the mind one has only to
inquire within oneself what one's Self is;
how could this search be done in books?
The Self is within the five sheaths; but books are outside them.
Since the Self has to be inquired into by discarding the five sheaths,
it is futile to search for it in books."

The questioner asks:
"What is release?"

Sri Ramana Maharshi answers:
"Inquiring into the nature of one's self that is in bondage,
and realizing one's true nature is release."

The questioner asks:
"If 'I' also be an illusion, who then casts off the illusion?"

Sri Ramana Maharshi replies:
"The 'I' casts off the illusion of 'I' and yet remains as 'I'.
Such is the paradox of Self-Realization.
The realized do not see any contradiction in it.
You give up this and that of 'my' possessions.
If you give up 'I' and 'Mine' instead,
all are given up at a stroke.
The very seed of possession is lost.
Thus the evil is nipped in the bud or crushed in the germ itself.
Dispassion (vairagya) must be very strong to do this.
Eagerness to do it must be equal to that of
a man kept under water trying to rise to the surface for his life."

The questioner asked:
"Cannot this trouble and difficulty be lessened with the aid of a Master or God chosen for worship? (Ishta Devata)
Cannot they give the power to see our Self as it is to change us into themselves and take us to Self-Realization?"

Sri Ramana Maharshi replies:
"Ishta Devata and Guru are aids very powerful aids on this path.
But an aid to be effective requires your effort also.
Your effort is sine qua non (an indispensable or essential condition, element, or factor).
It is you who should see the sun. Can spectacles and the sun see for you?
You yourself have to see your true nature.