Liberating Jesus

A movie DVD that is very much worth your time ordering!

Struggling, Striving, Thinking, Praying, . . . only distractions

Everything Comes Back to Nothing

Inexplicably it comes. When you least expect it. For a reason you can never know. One moment you are striving, figuring, imagining, and then, in the blink of an eye, it all disappears. The struggle disappears. The striving disappears. The person disappears. The world disappears. Everything disappears, and the person is like a pinpoint of light, just receding until it disappears. And there’s nobody there to witness it. The person is gone. Only, only awareness remains. Nothing else. No one to be aware. Nothing to be aware of. Only that remains itself. Then it’s understood, finally and simply.


Then everything—all the struggle, all the striving, all the thinking, all the figuring, all the surrendering, all the letting go, all the grabbing hold of, all the praying, all the begging, all the cursing, too—was just a distraction. And only then is it seen that the person was, is, and ever will be no more than a thought. With a single thought, the person seems to reemerge. With more thoughts, the world seems to reemerge right out of nothing. But now you know.


The incarnation is nothing more than a thought. A thousand incarnations are but a thousand thoughts. And this amazing miracle of a mirage we call the world reappears as it was before, but now you know. That’s why you usually have a good laugh, because you realize that all your struggles were made up. You conjured them up out of nothing—with a thought that was linked to another thought, that was then believed, that linked to another thought that was then believed. But never could it have been true, not for a second could it have actually existed. Not ever could you have actually suffered for a reason that was true—only through an imagination, good, bad, indifferent. The intricacies of spiritual philosophy and theologies are just a thought within Emptiness.


And so at times we talk, and I pretend to take your struggles seriously, just as I pretended to take my own seriously. You may pretend to take your own struggles seriously from time to time, and although we pretend, we really shouldn’t forget that we are pretending, that we are making up the content of our experience; we are making up the little dramas of our lives. We are making up whether we need to hold on or surrender or figure it out or pray to God or be purified or have karma cleansed—it’s all a thought. We just collude in this ridiculous charade of an illusion pretending that it’s real, only to reveal that it’s not. There is no karma. There is nothing really to purify. There’s no problem. There is only what you create and believe to be so. And if you like it that way, have at it!


But we cannot continue this absolute farce indefinitely. We cannot continue to pretend this game we play, indefinitely. It’s impossible. Everything comes back to nothing.


And then it’s a bit harder to hold a straight face consistently for the rest of your life.



          ~ A talk from Adyashanti
                      Transcribed from a talk in Pacific Grove, CA, June 9, 2006.
                                   
                                  http://www.adyashanti.org/index.php?file=home

Nothing Happening Here

AND SO


there is only One

all else is illusion

construction in mind

there is nothing happening here

there is only

One Being Awareness

stillness silence perfection

and in the stillness

a breathing perhaps

as if

there is only One breathing


and all this is that breathing

all this is That

we are That

we are that One


yet not -

not even we are One

because there is no we

only One



nothing happening here

despite what it seems

nothing matters

still

the One breathing

is an Outpouring of

pure blazing compassion

love   forgiveness   beauty   gift


and I find that I am not

who I thought I was

what I have called 'myself'

is nothing - is an idea is

an accretion of memories

attributes patterns thoughts

inheritances habits ideas

which I can look at and say


not I

I am not this

as myself I simply

am not

no self no me has ever existed -

illusion

fabrication

there is nothing happening


nobody here

there is only One

breathing


That is what I - is


I Am That

And That is All

and That is the Brilliance

which all this is -

life death love anguish

compassion understanding healing

light

the Brilliance within

where the Heart opens and there is

Nothing no self no one

only aching beauty

and overwhelming gratitude


Outpouring


        ~ from Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse

Leaving The Present Moment

Leaving The Present Moment

We humans are in some difficulty because we don't know how to stop thinking. Isn't that true? How many people can stop thinking and just be here in silence and Presence? And if you cannot stop thinking, then you cannot be present, for all thinking takes you into the mind.

There is nothing wrong with thinking. There is nothing wrong with entering the world of the mind, as long as you know that you are entering a world of illusion, and you know that only the present moment is the truth of life. Then you can play in the world of time, with your thoughts, memories, and imaginings. Enjoy yourself, but be careful! It is easy to get lost there.

If you identify with any of it, or take any of it too seriously, you will separate yourself from the present moment and the truth of life. You will be abandoning God, love, truth, and the present moment for the illusory world of the mind, filled with distorted memories and false promises.

 
From an excerpt from the book, Journey into Now

by Leonard Jacobson
http://www.leonardjacobson.com/blog/

Maharaj - on suffering

Question:
How is it that the question 'Who am I' attracts me little?

Maharaj:
If you have no problem of suffering and release from suffering, you will not find the energy and persistence needed for self-enquiry.  You cannot manufacture a crisis.  It must be genuine.

Question:
How does a genuine crisis happen?

Maharaj:
It happens every moment, but you are not alert enough.  A shadow on your neighbor's face, the immense and all-pervading sorrow of existence is a constant factor in your life, but you refuse to take notice.  You suffer and see others suffer, but you don't respond.

Question:
What you say is true, but what can I do about it?  Such indeed is the situation.  My helplessness and dullness are a part of it.

Maharaj:
Good enough.  Look at yourself steadily -- it is enough.  The door that locks you in, is also the door that lets you out.  The 'I am' is the door.  Stay at it until it opens.  As a matter of fact, it is open, only you are not at it.  You are waiting at the non-existent painted doors, which will never open.

From ""I am That"



Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,

Dreaming Your Existence

Paramhansa Yogananda:

 "Give to God not only the good that you do, but also the bad. I do not mean that you should deliberately do things that are wrong. But when you cannot help yourself, because of habits that are too strong, tell your mind that God is performing those actions through you...

It is He, after all, who has dreamed your existence. You have merely hypnotized yourself with the thought of your weaknesses. If you make the Lord responsible for them, it will help you to break the false hold they have on your imagination. You'll find it easier, then, to recognize in yourself the perfect image of God."

Arising from the same One Source

What if one day?

What if one day I say I am a Buddhist,

The next day I say I am a Christian,

The next I say I am a Hindu,

The next day a Jew,

The next a Muslim,

And the next day something else?

Has the "I" actually changed,

Or only the opinions of the mind?

Who am "I"?

That is not answered by mere opinions of the mind.

 

The answer is only in still and silence . . .

 

. . . beyond the opinions of the mind.

 

In stillness and silence all divisions disappear.

 

May all humans one day see. . .

 

. . . that we are all of the same One Source.

 

What if one day . . . ?

 

 

~ Swami Jnaneshvara

http://www.swamij.com/swamijnaneshvara.htm

"I am"

The Sense "I am"

When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself

to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real

Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All

my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a

difference it made, and how soon!


My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not

to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his

advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the

truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his

face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the

stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.


I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the

mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours

together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and

joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all

disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around

me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.


My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give

attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any

particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of

scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it

and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude.

My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it

worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears.

          - Nisargadatta Maharaj


"I am That"

Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,

Published by Acorn Press