Here is a reminder from Robert Adams. It is necessary and terribly efficient to look into these matters for ourselves. This is why I like to share here the parts of a spiritual teaching that sounds like ‘something to do’, something to experiment and verify for ourselves:
“You’ve got to realize you are greater than you think, and you’ve got the same power within you as everybody else does. It may appear to be asleep, but as you work on yourself, work on yourself, work on yourself, you will awaken it, and one day it will become stronger than you are and take you over completely and you’ll be free. But you’ve got to keep on working on yourself, and stop putting yourself down. That’s the worst thing you can do is to put yourself down. That’s blasphemy because you’re putting God down. Think of yourself as a higher person, love yourself, worship yourself, bow to yourself. You are greater than you think.”
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Further exploring on the subject:
“Increase and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfil them. It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Transform desire into love. All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are expressions of your longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
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“Hold on to the tail of the tiger, don’t let it go, because you will see if you hold on, you will enter into quite, totally a different dimension. But if you let go, you know it is like coming back to living in the beastly life of struggle and conflict and battle with each other.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
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“I think the best way to live in this world, the most important thing, is to explore and to recognise who we essentially are. And having recognised who we essentially are, or as we are engaged in this exploration, to think and feel in a way that is consistent with our understanding of ourself. And to act in a way that is consistent with those thoughts and feelings. In other words, our knowledge of ourself, our understanding of ourself, is the most important aspect of life, because everything we do, everything we think, all the relationships we engage in, we think and feel and act and relate on behalf of ourself. And therefore, everything depends on our understanding of ourself.”
~ Rupert Spira
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“O soul, seek the Beloved, O friend, seek the Friend,
O watchman, be wakeful: it behoves not a watchman to sleep.”
~ Rumi
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“You always have two choices. One choice is the familiar one: to sacrifice this mysterious awakeness for something else. The second choice is not to sacrifice this that’s awake and present, whatever you happen to be. You can choose not to sacrifice this for the next promise of a better moment, a better event, or a better experience. This is your choice — to be true to what’s true or not. And this is the Fire of Truth. This that is awake now, as you, in you, reveals the utter irrelevance of every other argument, whatever that may be. This that is awake to itself renders everything that is not true irrelevant. This silence burns the grasping for anything else and frees the life that you are, to live itself without negotiation. Feel the immediate visceral invitation of this that is awake, to put down everything else. The invitation asks you to cease bargaining with life, with the moment, yourself, your teacher, your friend, your mate. Just stop. This fire is unseen and unknown, and yet it burns everything other than itself.”
~ Adyashanti
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The picture is by Susann Mielke / Pixabay
Bibliography:
– ‘Silence of the Heart’ – by Robert Adams – (Infinity Institute)
– ‘Being Aware of Being Aware’, – by Rupert Spira – (Sahaja Publications)
– ‘I Am That‘ – by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj – (Non-Duality Press)
– ‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’ – by J. Krishnamurti – (Krishnamurti Publications of America, US)
– ‘The Essential Rumi’ – Translated by Coleman Barks – (HarperOne)
– ‘Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering’ – by Adyashanti – (Sounds True Inc)
Websites:
– Robert Adams (Wikipedia)
– Rupert Spira
– Nisargadatta Maharaj (Wikipedia)
– J. Krishnamurti
– Rumi (Wikipedia)
– Adyashanti
Suggestion:
– Fleeing to God (other pointers from the blog)
– A Day at Brockwood Park (Homage to J. Krishnamurti)
– Rumi (Homage to Rumi)
– Khetwadi Lane (Homage to Nisargadatta Maharaj)
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here was once a young girl of about ten years old, called Ishani. She lived on a mountain farm with her father. Her mother died a few years ago, and since then her father has grown bitter, hard, a gruff man. He started drinking, stopped seeing anybody, and forced his daughter to the same isolation. He wasn’t a bad man, but was saddened by the loss of his wife, and exasperated at not being able to communicate with his daughter.
The Dawn Within 