FREEDOM FROM SUFFERING - PART 7
For the rest of this week, the three-step direct path pointers will be offered. Seekers, if you are serious, these instructions describe how to be free from suffering -- permanently.
Questioner: “Surely there is something valid and valuable in every approach.”
Nisargadatta: “In each case the value lies in bringing you to the need of seeking within. Playing with various approaches may be due to resistance to going within, to the fear of having to abandon the illusion of being something or somebody in particular. To find water you do not dig small pits all over the place, but drill in one place only. Similarly, to find your self you have to explore yourself.”
Questioner: "In the beginning we may have to pray and meditate for some time before we are ready for self-inquiry."
Nisargadatta: "If you believe so, go on. To me, all delay is a waste of time. You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate search within. Of all the Yogas it is the simplest and the shortest."
Questioner: “You mean to say that all these glories will come with the mere dwelling on the feeling ‘I am”?
Nisargadatta: “It is the simple that is certain, not the complicated. Somehow, people do not trust the simple, the easy, the always available. Why not give an honest try to what I say? It may look very small and insignificant, but it is like a seed that grows into a mighty tree. Give yourself a chance!”
“I simply followed my Guru’s instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being ‘I am’, and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the ‘I am’ in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared – myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.”
"Whatever happened, I would turn my attention away from it and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears. Just turn away from all that occupies the mind; do whatever work you have to complete, but avoid new obligations; keep empty, keep available, resist not what comes uninvited. In the end you will reach a state of non-grasping, of joyful non-attachment, of inner ease and freedom indescribable, yet wonderfully real."
“Nothing stops you but preoccupation with the outer which prevents you from focusing on the inner. It cannot be helped, you cannot skip your spiritual practice. You have to turn away from the world and go within.”
"As long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself: to know yourself, turn your attention away from the world and turn it within."
Questioner: “What is the course of training in self-awareness?”
Nisargadatta: “There is no need of training. Awareness is always with you. The same attention that you give to the outer, you turn to the inner. No new, or special kind of awareness is needed.”
“What you need is to be aware of being aware.” "Don't be misled by the simplicity of the advice. Very few are those who have the courage to trust the innocent and the simple." "The all important word is 'try'. Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions."
"You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no failure."
"It is not a matter of easy, or difficult. Either you try or you don't. It is up to you." .
Thank you to Michael Langford for this three-step quote selection.
STEP #1:
Questioner: "Have I not suffered enough?"
Nisargadatta: "Suffering has made you dull, unable to see its enormity. Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you ...
STEP #2:
" ... your next is to long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of longing will guide you; you need no other guide."
STEP #3: Questioner: "Have I not suffered enough?"
Nisargadatta: "Suffering has made you dull, unable to see its enormity. Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you ...
STEP #2:
" ... your next is to long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of longing will guide you; you need no other guide."
Questioner: “Surely there is something valid and valuable in every approach.”
Nisargadatta: “In each case the value lies in bringing you to the need of seeking within. Playing with various approaches may be due to resistance to going within, to the fear of having to abandon the illusion of being something or somebody in particular. To find water you do not dig small pits all over the place, but drill in one place only. Similarly, to find your self you have to explore yourself.”
Questioner: "In the beginning we may have to pray and meditate for some time before we are ready for self-inquiry."
Nisargadatta: "If you believe so, go on. To me, all delay is a waste of time. You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate search within. Of all the Yogas it is the simplest and the shortest."
Questioner: “You mean to say that all these glories will come with the mere dwelling on the feeling ‘I am”?
Nisargadatta: “It is the simple that is certain, not the complicated. Somehow, people do not trust the simple, the easy, the always available. Why not give an honest try to what I say? It may look very small and insignificant, but it is like a seed that grows into a mighty tree. Give yourself a chance!”
“I simply followed my Guru’s instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being ‘I am’, and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the ‘I am’ in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared – myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.”
"Whatever happened, I would turn my attention away from it and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears. Just turn away from all that occupies the mind; do whatever work you have to complete, but avoid new obligations; keep empty, keep available, resist not what comes uninvited. In the end you will reach a state of non-grasping, of joyful non-attachment, of inner ease and freedom indescribable, yet wonderfully real."
“Nothing stops you but preoccupation with the outer which prevents you from focusing on the inner. It cannot be helped, you cannot skip your spiritual practice. You have to turn away from the world and go within.”
"As long as you are engrossed in the world, you are unable to know yourself: to know yourself, turn your attention away from the world and turn it within."
Questioner: “What is the course of training in self-awareness?”
Nisargadatta: “There is no need of training. Awareness is always with you. The same attention that you give to the outer, you turn to the inner. No new, or special kind of awareness is needed.”
“What you need is to be aware of being aware.” "Don't be misled by the simplicity of the advice. Very few are those who have the courage to trust the innocent and the simple." "The all important word is 'try'. Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions."
"You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no failure."
"It is not a matter of easy, or difficult. Either you try or you don't. It is up to you." .
Thank you to Michael Langford for this three-step quote selection.
Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.