The True Nature of Reality

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.