The True Nature of Reality

“ In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware of the Self or to identify with the body and the mind.”     --  Annamalai Swami   Rememb er, to k now Yourself, return to the silence before words.

“Eternal vigilance is the price one has to pay for Freedom. Only with constant vigilance and by remaining aware all the time, one can really start seeing the working of this cunning manipulative mind. While observing with aloof attention, all these compartments open up and the contents surface up.   In that field of eternal vigilance you start observing the whole trajectory of the thought. Then like a hawk you are able to catch the thought as soon as it arises in your inner space. Thus by catching a thought right at the point of onset, you can dissolve it before it catches you. Slowly the grip of the thought-emotional mind loosens up. And the awareness gains momentum. More and more Life energy gathers up which strengthens the field of vigilant awareness.  All these thought-emotions get dissolved into the light of vibrant awareness. This is the way one can remain in the field of pure consciousness for longer duration. This is how the integration of Total Life Energ...

One needs to look at everything that moves within the field of mind. This must not be a superficial inquiry but one carried out with one’s entire being. One has to be watchful to catch every thought as it arises – follow its trajectory – how it comes up, moves and ends. Then one will begin to realize that the entire movement of thought is habitual and mechanical. Only through attentive watchfulness will this mechanical and compulsive movement of thought, lose its momentum and finally come to an end. In such ending one will discover a mysterious momentum of quietude. If one wants peace, creativity and love, one has to undertake this inward journey. One may be clever, but mere cleverness will not lead to that state of peace and ecstasy which is the very basis of life.   -- Dada Gavand Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

The lone remaining wall  Of a long-since fallen house,  No more inside, no more outside,  No more trespass for the mouse;  Where a doorway and five windows  Allow the winds to pass  Unobstructed as they billow  Through the woods, across the grass;  Where sun and moon and starshine  Illuminate the scene  For all the folk that pass it by  When wandering in the green.  "I wonder who the person was  Who built this mighty house,  That's now a bramble garden  And a home for grub and louse?"  A broken ridge and rafters smashed  Lie strewn across the floor  And all that stands, quite ownerless,  Five windows and a door.   –       Chithurst, 1983    Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

"[Stillness] strikes me. This bottle, this glass, a big stone on a deserted beach – these are motionless things, but they set loose great movements in my mind... People who go bathing on a beach and who move about, touch me much less than the [stillness] of a pebble. (Motionless things become grand, much grander than moving things.) [Stillness] makes me think of great spaces in which movements take place which do not stop at a given moment, movements which have no end. It is, as Kant said, the immediate irruption of the infinite in the finite. A pebble which is a finite and motionless object suggests to me not only movements, but movements without end."    -- Jean Miro  Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.  Quote via Brain Pickings;  Photo collage by Eduwrite

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection, The water has no mind to receive their image.     -- Zen Poem  Rememb er, to k now Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Every moment we recognize awareness ― and really trust and learn to appreciate it ― joy comes, compassion comes, and love. But it isn’t personal; it isn’t based on liking, preferences, or kammic attachments. The dhamma is not the destruction of conditioned phenomena, but the container of it. All possibilities of conditioned phenomena arise and cease in the dhamma; and there is nothing that can bind us once we see that, because the reality of the dhamma is seen rather than the forms that arise and cease. Mindfulness reflections are skilful means the Buddha developed for investigating experience, for breaking down the illusions we hold, for breaking through the ignorance we grasp at, for freeing ourselves from form, the limited and the unsatisfactory. Rather than teaching too many techniques now, or giving too much structure, I prefer to encourage people just to trust themselves with mindfulness and awareness. Often meditation is taught with this sense that one has to get something or ...

In this way and that I have tried to save the old pail  Since the bamboo strip was weak and about to break  Until at last the bottom fell out.  No more water in the pail!  No more moon in the water!     -- Chiyono  Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Here – sitting outside with the laptop – there is the view of a natural wilderness – the huge oak tree, fields of nasturtium leaves, geraniums with deep pink flowers, a white butterfly, the smell of jasmine on the creeper nearby, two white arum lilies, overhead the blue sky and drifting white clouds, the sounds of unseen birds, wasps building nests in the eaves, a dog soaking up the sun, the call of the Egyptian geese.  How is it possible to describe the inexplicable emptiness of this amazing array? Everything is simply this unfathomable emptiness – ONE – but expressed with this veneer of solidity that appears different – the red geranium, the brown dog. Ha!  The gaze can look for hours on this scene marveling at this dance of nothing showing itself in a thousand different ways. What Am I? The question is answered in everything – the NOTHING or the emptiness that is recognized points directly to this unfathomable mystery. I am THAT; I AM.   Everything happens n...

Self-enquiry must be done continuously. It doesn't work if you regard it as a part-time activity. You must have a lifelong commitment to establish yourself in the Self. Your determination to succeed must be strong and firm, and it should manifest as continuous effort.  –         Sri Annamalai Swami Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Try to be, only to be. 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. Don't ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no failure. What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must really have had surfeit of being the person you are; now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistance against the unnecessary is the secret of success.   -- Nisargadatta Maharaj  Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real nature. If we can attain it or be in that state, it is all right. But, one cannot reach it without effort, the effort of deliberate 'meditation'. All the age-long vasanas carry the mind outward and turn it to external objects. All such thoughts have to be given up and the mind turned inward. For that, effort is necessary for most people. Of course everybody, every book says : "சும்மா இரு " , " BE STILL ". But, it is not easy. That is why all this effort is necessary. Even if we find one who has at once achieved the Silence the Supreme State, you may take it that the effortless and choiceless awareness is reached only after deliberate 'meditation'. That meditation can take any form which appeals to you best. See what helps you to keep away all other thoughts and adopt that method for your meditation.  –        Ramana Maharshi Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before wor...

Bhagavan sometimes used the analogy of a  besieged  fort. If one systematically closes off all the entrances to a fort and then picks off the occupants one by one as they try to come out, sooner or later the fort will be empty. We should apply these same tactics to the mind. How to go about doing this? Seal off the entrances and exits to the mind by not reacting to rising thoughts or sense impressions. Don't let new ideas, judgements, likes, dislikes, etc. enter the mind, and don't let rising thoughts flourish and escape your attention. When you have sealed off the mind in this way, challenge each emerging thought as it appears by asking, 'Where have you come from?' or 'Who is the person who is having this thought?' If you can do this continuously, with full attention, new thoughts will appear momentarily and then disappear. If you can maintain the siege for long enough, a time will come when no more thoughts arise; or if they do, they will only be fleeting, u...

View and Meditation of the Great Perfection  by the first Jamgon Kontrul Rinpoche   Homage to the Guru, the teacher.  The View and Meditation of Dzogchen can be explained in many, many ways,  but simply sustaining the essence of present awareness includes them all.  Your mind won't be found elsewhere.   It is the very nature of this moment-to-moment thinking.   Regard nakedly the essence of this thinking and you find present awareness, right where you are.  Why chase after thoughts, which are superficial ripples of present awareness?  Rather look directly into the naked, empty nature of thoughts; then there is no duality, no observer, and nothing observed.  Simply rest in this transparent, nondual present awareness.  Make yourself at home in the natural state of pure presence, just being, not doing anything in particular.  Present awareness is empty, open, and luminous; not a concrete substa...

Self-enquiry must be done continuously. It doesn't work if you regard it as a part-time activity. You must have a lifelong commitment to establish yourself in the Self. Your determination to succeed must be strong and firm, and it should manifest as continuous effort.  -- Sri Annamalai Swami Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

The Seeker: “What kind of daily routine proved to be the most effective for you?”    Michael James: The only ‘routine’ that is truly effective is just to “cling tenaciously to self-attentiveness”, and thereby to be extremely vigilant to draw our mind persistently back to our own self-conscious being, ‘I am’, whenever it is distracted even in the least by any other thought. Other than this vigilant inner ‘routine’ of tenaciously persistent self-attentiveness or self-remembrance, any routine that we may try to adopt will only be a distraction, diverting our mind away from what is truly essential. The inward practice of persistent self-attentiveness is the only ‘routine’ that is truly natural to us, because it is our natural state of thought-free non-dual self-conscious being, whereas all other routines are artificial, external and alien to our real nature, because they are contrived by our mind and its habit of persistently thinking of otherness. Remember, t...

"Only a one-pointed mind, turned inward, succeeds in Self-inquiry. Weak, faltering minds, like green banana trees, are not fit fuel to feed this fire."  ~ Sri Muruganar Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

As long as you feel you are the personal self you cannot be liberated, the finite can never know the infinite. Remember, we do not want to exchange bad thoughts with good thoughts, we want to drop all thought and merge with The Infinite." span>  –        ~ Robert Adams Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

" People are tied down by a sense-object when they cover it with unreal imaginations; likewise they are liberated from it when they see it as it really is. The sight of one and the same object may attract one person, repel another, and leave a third indifferent; a fourth may be moved to withdraw gently from it. Hence the sense-object itself is not the decisive cause of either bondage or emancipation. It is the presence or absence of imaginations which determines whether attachment takes place or not. "  –        Ashvagosha Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.