The Mind Cow

                         

“D: Why is it so difficult to turn the mind inwards?

M: It depends on practice and dispassion and succeeds only gradually. Like a cow accustomed to grazing stealthily on other’s estates, the mind cannot be easily confined to her stall. However much her owner tempts her with luscious grass and fine fodder, she refuses the first time; then she takes a bit , but her innate tendency to stray asserts itself and she slips away; on being repeatedly tempted by the owner, she gradually accustoms herself to the stall; finally, even if let loose, she would not stray away. Similarly with the mind : if once it finds its inner happiness, it will not wander outward.”

Talks with Ramana Maharishi , Talk 213

Listen, my friend: do not despair.You forgot your source and just got lost in the movie.
Discover who you really are and find true and lasting joy.

  For too long, you have been accustomed to the intoxication of illusion, the maddening temptations of the senses, the highs of duality , the addictions of power and pelf, of pleasure and pain.

 The vasanas  of desire and anger and greed, the self-inflicted torments of guilt and doubt and jealousy have been deeply engrained in you over so many lifetimes ; even your suffering has become too precious to let go!

You cling to your myth, your story, your script, terrified of losing your only identity, no matter how much you are in misery.

Don’t worry, there is a high greater than all the highs, a potion that can destroy all the  poisons and set you free. Just discover the sat-chit-ananda of the infinite Self within and your suffering will dissolve  in that ecstasy like salt in the sea.

In the silence of the mind, we find true rest: this is why everyone treasures the joy of deep, thought-free sleep.

How can you  reach that thought-free state while still remaining awake and aware?
 By seeking the source of the  “I “thought, the place to where it retires in sleep.

Atma Vichara or Self Inquiry is the practice of seeking the source of the “I” thought.

At first, you will struggle to turn inwards, to find the silent thought-less centre; this is the tapasya, the sadhana , the effort that will, one day,  suddenly drop you into effortless infinity.

Like a swimmer learning to dive, you will dip in and out; over time, you will learn how to stay submerged longer and longer, to dive deeper and deeper.

Practice is everything.

Once you taste the deep peace and the ineffable bliss of the Self in your Heart, nothing else will ever satisfy you.

In the beginning , you will be able to stay in the Heart only for brief moments: this is enough.

 As your practice of atma vichara deepens over time, you will find it easier and easier to turn inwards, until it becomes effortless and automatic. This happens when Grace takes over and pulls you deep into the Self.

And, eventually, like the drop falling into the ocean, you will let go of your mind, your story, your ego, and dissolve totally into the Self.

The rest is only silence .

Peace at Last

 “ Return to the simplicity of  formless substance.

  Without form, there is no desire.

  Without desire, there is tranquillity.

   In this way all things would be at peace.” Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

“ Identification with the body is dvaita. Non-identification is advaita. “  Bhagawan Ramana Maharishi.

Everything exists in emptiness: space holds all things, from pebbles to planets to galaxies.

Everything is made of emptiness: at the heart of matter, inside the atom, there is mostly empty space.

Everything is pervaded by a formless, intelligent consciousness: this is the Self that is the one true and eternal reality.

Observing the intricate perfection of the web of Nature, I marvel at the underlying intelligence and harmony.

At core, am I this formless, infinite consciousness?

Who am I?

Who was I before this body was born? Who will I be  after this body is dead?

Can I investigate my own true nature? Can I discover the Real underlying the Unreal?

I am not this limited and temporary body-mind complex. I am beyond form and formlessness, neither everything nor nothing. I cannot say what I am: except ” I am”.

The Self is the blissful perfection that is the source and the substance of all things.

Once I seek the source of my own Being, I merge with this Self and become one with everything.

This is the ocean that the river of the soul thirsts for and seeks through a thousand lifetimes.

Peace at last: infinite and eternal peace.

 

The Final Barrier

“The biggest ego-trip is the spiritual one. How can you think you are special when every leaf, every ant, every blade of grass and grain of dust is already perfectly enlightened? It’s good to remember, enlightenment only happens when you disappear.” 

From Lightsongs, the book.

Beware the cunning ego, the ultimate master of disguise. He wears the cloak of humility and spirituality with perfect aplomb.

“Look at me! I am so humble and good…I am progressing so well on my spiritual path. I experience the Light in my heart and the flowering in my sahasrara chakra. Pity these poor worldly souls who are still trapped in their delusions and their karma.”

So subtle his air of superiority, disguised so cleverly ….and so you fall again into the false comfort of “spiritual “ progress. You think of yourself as the true seeker who has found the path and is so far ahead of and superior to the ordinary joe on the street…..just remember: Mr. Ego will play any role convincingly to avoid dying.

Sorry buddy…you got played again.

The truth is: you have to jump off that cliff !
 You have to be burnt to a crisp and your ashes dissolved totally in the depths of the ocean.

You have to die. Before your body dies.

There is no other way.

" This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives.   

This freedom is worth more than all the lands on earth. 

To be one with the truth for just a moment  Is worth more than the world and life itself.

In the end, the mountains of imagination were nothing but a house.

And this grand life of mine was nothing but an excuse.

You've been hearing my story so patiently for a liifetime.

Now hear this: it was nothing but a fairy tale."

Rumi

The Prince. A fairy-tale.

Sprung from the loins of Light, he is shadow-less, a singer, first-born of emptiness, waiting for a sign.He is Being, pure and untrammelled, a spark of the divine flame, a prince of conscious bliss.

From nowhere, a pale reflection suddenly appears, casting a haze upon him, creating a smoky backdrop of space-time for shadow and light to play at lovers, spinning worlds into being.

 Maya the inexplicable, great magic mistress, mother of infinite illusion, begins her spinning dance….drawing him like a moth to her flame. Hypnotised by her terrible beauty, the agony of desire fills him and he falls like a stone into the maelstrom of samsara…the fragmentation of unity and truth. His spark now hidden in a cloud of unknowing and delusion, he is lost in an unreal dream.

Thus begins the tale of tales, the birth of myth, the great adventure, the legend of a thousand lifetimes and a thousand worlds. 
Once upon a time: the lost prince, the fallen angel seeking his redemption, the prodigal son, the knight on the eternal quest….and so, the stories begin.

They carry him like a leaf on a storm through innumerable wombs and worlds beyond end in the dance of life and death and life again: and again and again. Tangled in the chains of  cause and effect, our prince is sucked into the nightmare, the tapestry of suffering, the cunning drama of a mind running wild. 
In the midst of this seemingly endless madness, this inevitable and fateful forgetting, can he find a way to remember who he truly is? Will he ever escape the enchantress and her wiles and find his way back home?

Fortunately, there are mysterious signs that appear upon his path, just when they are needed the most, and also guides who help him find his way: a talking animal, a kind spirit, an ancient tree, an old hermit, a bent crone, a sunny smiling child. They set him on the path to find true wisdom. 

At last, after many trials and tribulations, mistakes and wrong turnings, our hero finally finds the Master, who is the healer and magus and sage all rolled into one.
And the Master without points unerringly and emphatically to the Master within, turns the prince’s gaze steadfastly inwards instead of outwards, so that at last he can fathom his own mystery. Thus he finds his own true beginnings in the depths of himself, discovers once more the treasure that has never left him and that has always been the core of his being: his divine Self!

Like a diver emerging from the depths, he awakens to his own truth and emerges into the warm radiance of his true nature.

Is this, then, the grand enlightenment, the nirvana that is eternal and infinite joy?

Or is it all a dream in the mind of an author asleep on a park-bench at some cross-roads in a parallel universe?

Could it, perhaps, be both?

I AM THAT I AM , Song of Brahman

I am.
Stillness and motion, nothing and everything, nowhere and everywhere, I am paradox and beyond paradox, beyond all thought or measure or description.From Brahma to a blade of grass, from a grain of sand to the vast galaxies of space, all is me …and YET I remain unchanged, unmoving , untouched, unseen and unknowable.
Out of my infinite eternal emptiness, I spin a mysterious web of conscious energy that is  all there is: I AM  in the marrow of everything…….yet no one can see me or hear me or touch me.
No senses can experience me, no instruments discover me…I am the infinite beyond all beyonds.
 I am the atom that contains all the universes, the drop that holds all oceans, the subject that contains all objects…how can you know me?
Any intellect that seeks me will go mad or crash into the abyss….for I am impossible to grasp by thought.
When all effort leads through despair and total exhaustion to the point of absolute surrender: there I explode in presence like blossoms of lightning; suddenly, I AM!
Being is all. You can only BE me.
The end of suffering is the end of the movie of “YOU”.
It’s as simple as that."
 ( Picture: Gaia by Alex Grey)
Brahman