exploring dreamstate

The knower rises and sets with the known. That in which both the knower and the known arise and set, is beyond time. The words permanent or eternal do not apply.

Just as the knower of the body appears at birth, so he disappears at death.

Life remains. Consciousness needs a vehicle and an instrument for its manifestation. When life produces another body, another knower comes into being.

What is this sense of a separate existence?

It is a reflection in a separate body of the one reality. In this reflection the unlimited and the limited are confused and taken to be the same. To undo this confusion is the purpose of Yoga.

What was born must die. Only the unborn is deathless. Find what is it that never sleeps and never wakes, and whose pale reflection is our sense of 'I'.

How am I to go about this finding out?

How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart in it. Interest there must be and steady remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.

What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behaviour must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will bring you to your goal.

All will come as you go on. Take the first step first. All blessings come from within. Turn within. 'I am' you know. Be with it all the time you can spare, until you revert to it spontaneously. There is no simpler and easier way.

4. Real World is Beyond the Mind

Tuesday, May 21, 2013 6:10 PM Posted by Zee

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Causation means succession in time of events in space, the space being physical or mental.

Time, space, causation are mental categories, arising and subsiding with the mind.

Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is.

The very urge to achieve is also an expression of the total universe. It merely shows that the energy potential has risen at a particular point.

It is the illusion of time that makes you talk of causality.

When the past and the future are seen in the timeless now, as parts of a common pattern, the idea of cause-effect loses its validity and creative freedom takes its place.

When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be without a particular cause.

Your own mother was needed to give you birth; But you could not have been born without the sun and the earth. Even these could not have caused your birth without your own desire to be born.

It is desire that gives birth, that gives name and form.

The desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests itself as something tangible or conceivable.

Thus is created the world in which we live, our personal world. The real world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer.

To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.

Look at the net and its many contradictions.

You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them - your very seeing them will make them go.

3. The Living Present

Monday, May 20, 2013 2:17 PM Posted by Zee

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Yet, between the body and the self there lies a cloud of thoughts and feelings, which neither server the body nor the self. These thoughts and feelings are flimsy, transient and meaningless, mere mental dust that blinds and chokes, yet they are there, obscuring and destroying.

Surely, the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself. Nor can the anticipation. There is something exceptional, unique, about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not have. There is a livingness about it, an actuality; it stands out as if illuminated. There is the ‘stamp of reality’ on the actual, which the past and the future do not have.

What gives the present that 'stamp of reality’?

There is nothing peculiar in the present event to make it different from the past and future. For a moment the past was actual and the future will become so.

What makes the present so different?

Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always now, in the present, and what is with me now shares in my reality. The past is in memory, the future - in imagination.

There is nothing in the present event itself that makes it stand out as real. It may be some simple, periodical occurrence, like the striking of the clock. In spite of our knowing that the successive strokes are identical, the present stroke is quite different from the previous one and the next - as remembered, or expected.

A thing focused in the now is with me, for I am ever present; it is my own reality that I impart to the present event.

But we deal with things remembered as if they were real?

We consider memories, only when they come into the present The forgotten is not counted until one is reminded - which implies, bringing into the now.

Things and thoughts have been changing all the time. But the feeling that what is now is real has never changed, even in dream.

2. Obsession with the body

Sunday, May 19, 2013 1:59 PM Posted by Zee

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Because you imagine differences, you go here and there in search of ‘superior’ people.

I see no difference between you and me. My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with them.

I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self.

Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self.

Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence.

By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind.

Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it.

Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over - you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are.

All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self.

All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly.

The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being - we differ only in appearance.

We discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

1. The Sense of ‘I am’

Saturday, May 18, 2013 4:28 PM Posted by Zee

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I am always somebody with its memories and habits. I know no other ‘I am’.

Is it not important to you to know whether you are a mere body, or something else?

Or, maybe nothing at all?

Don’t you see that all your problems are your body’s problems - food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, name, fame, security, survival - all these lose their meaning the moment you realize that you may not be a mere body.

The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind stays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot be verbalized but can be experienced.

All you need to do is try and try again.

After all the sense ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of things to it - body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc. All these self-identifications are misleading. Because of them you take yourself to be what you are not.

Then what am I?

It is enough to know what you are not. You need not know what you are.

For as long as knowledge means description in terms of what is already known, perceptual, or conceptual, there can be no such thing as self-knowledge, for what you are cannot be described, except as except as total negation.

All you can say is: ‘I am not this, I am not that’.

You cannot meaningfully say ‘this is what I am’. It just makes no sense. What you can point out as 'this' or 'that' cannot be yourself. Surely, you can not be 'something' else.

You are nothing perceivable, or imaginable. Yet, without you there can be neither perception nor imagination. You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking, the body acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.

Can there be perception, experience without you?

An experience must ‘belong'. Somebody must come and declare it as his own. Without an experiencer the experience is not real.

It is the experiencer that imparts reality to experience. An experience which you cannot have, of what value is it to you?

The sense of being an experiencer, the sense of ‘I am’, is it not also an experience?

Obviously, every thing experienced is an experience. And in every experience there arises the experiencer of it.

Memory creates the illusion of continuity.

In reality each experience has its own experiencer and the sense of identity is due to the common factor at the root of all experiencer-experience relations.

Identity and continuity are not the same.

Just as each flower has its own color, but all colors are caused by the same light, so do many experiences appear in the undivided and indivisible awareness, each separate in memory, identical in essence. This essence is the root, the foundation, the timeless and spaceless 'possibility' of all experience.

How do I get at it?

You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance.

Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own.

Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realization that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you.

With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.

Sorry, we're closed

Thursday, April 25, 2013 8:18 AM Posted by Zee

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Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream.

A message to the readers

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 8:36 AM Posted by Zee

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Dear Reader,

I may write a blog and you may read it but we travel alone.

Consciousness is " I AM" and "I AM" is consciousness. Stay in "I AM", don't move from there, be, just be. That's the whole deal and that's all I've learned. Truth has no teaching, requires no teacher and it is not a spiritual pursuit. Let repeat it - Truth is not a spiritual pursuit.

There is nothing to know, nothing to learn, nothing to become. Teachers are not necessary, they are around just to make your mind lazy. The books replaces your thinking, they think instead of you. No head full of spiritual knowledge or wall full of spiritual books can ever help you.

All forward motion depends on release, not gain. Only that knowledge which destroys knowledge facilitates spiritual progress. Don't seek external validation, be your own teacher. And don't be inert. Think for yourself or don't think at all.

If you want to make a sense of this dreamstate then you are binding yourself to a lifetime of blind wondering, like countless billions before you. You can believe something new every week, or one thing for the rest of your life, but you will never discover the slightest trace of true knowledge.

Here, right now, in my life I 'm just going along to get along.

I have learned that if I don't kick big rocks, I don't suffer the ill effect thereof. When in Rome, and all that. The time passes quickly.

Dear reader, I am to you as you are to me; a perception, the appearance of a person. Only you know that you exist, but you have no idea about me. I have no idea about your existance. There is only "I AM", I exist. Not really sure for you exist.

Nobody can know anything more than "I AM", I exist. However you look at the universe, whatever you believe, no one can ever know more than that. There is no greater authority in the universe than you. If you know "I AM" then you have reached the Silent Knowledge, the ultimate catastrophe of the worldy knowledge. Well done!

Don't take all this too seriously. It doesn't really matter. You don't have to go and sell this ideas to anyone. This stuff is far outside the confort zones of the greatest minds our species has ever produced, and here you are making direct eye contact with it, so well done, again.

Have fun, don't strain, enjoy the ride.

Zee

Supreme Reality

Tuesday, April 23, 2013 6:48 AM Posted by Zee

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All you say is right for the outgoing (pravritti) path. For the path of return (nivritti) only oneself is necessary. My stand I take where nothing (paramakash) is; words do not reach there, nor thoughts. To the mind it is all darkness and silence.

Then consciousness begins to stir and wakes up the mind (chidakash), which projects the world (mahadakash), built of memory and imagination. Once the world comes into being, all you say may be so. It is in the nature of the mind to imagine goals, to strive towards them, to seek out means and ways, to display vision, energy and courage. These are divine attributes and I do not deny them.

But I take my stand where no difference exists, where things are not, nor the minds that create them. There I am at home. Whatever happens, does not affect me - things act on things, that is all. Free from memory and expectation, I am fresh, innocent and wholehearted.

Mind is the great worker (mahakarta) and it needs rest. Needing nothing, I am unafraid. Whom to be afraid of? There is no separation, we are not separate selves.

There is only one Self, the Supreme Reality, in which the personal and the impersonal are one.

- I am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj

Domestication

Monday, April 22, 2013 6:39 AM Posted by Zee

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Domestication (dictionary.com):
1. to convert (animals, plants, etc.) to domestic uses; tame.
2. to tame (an animal), especially by generations of breeding, to live in close association with
human beings as a pet or work animal and usually creating a dependency so that the animal loses
its ability to live in the wild.
3. to adapt (a plant) so as to be cultivated by and beneficial to human beings.
4. to accustom to household life or affairs.
5. to take (something foreign, unfamiliar, etc.) for one's own use or purposes; adopt.

What does this so-called education mean, and what is it all about?

Why do we go to school, why do we learn various subjects, why do we pass examinations and compete with each other for better grades? Is it merely in order to pass the examinations and get a job? Or is it the function of education to prepare us while we are young to understand the life? Oh wishful thinking.

Having a job and earning livelihood is necessary - and that is all. We are being educated only to get better occupation. Life became merely a job, an occupation. Life, something extraordinarily wide and profound, a great mystery became just a business. Our education merely prepare us to earn a livelihood and we miss the whole point of life.

I've earned my degree, I have a series of letters after my name. I've passed my examinations, found a job, got married, had children, and then I became more and more like machine. I am fearful, anxious, frightened of life. I am tied to my job and to my responsibilities and this is a way in which I will gradually wither away.

Our education is process of domestication. By education my mind became dull and stupid.

Philosophy should be above science and religion but it failed miserably because it does not accept extreme skepticism. No amount of skepticism could ever be too extreme. Anyway, it is science not philosophy that now leads all questions of higher knowledge in modern world. Our modern science made us fearful creatures. We are afraid to ask questions. Here is what Stephen Hawking said as a first sentence to the Grand Design:

We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe.

What a limited belief, what a nonsense! There is no objective universe. There is only consciousness and we are "I AM", we are consciousness. This first sentence in his book is offense, it is offense to honest inquiry into this matter. And Hawking is the most respected scientific guy. From this sentence I see his limiting beliefs.

Highly specialized education and training in modern world have produced us as the most narrowly focused and effectively indoctrinated people. We are domesticated instead educated.

Dreamworld - state of affairs

Sunday, April 21, 2013 2:37 PM Posted by Zee

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What is Enlightenment? – Immanuel Kant

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature.

If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.

The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult.

Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone.

Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts.