"When you become stabilized in your Self, the continuous commentary of the mind will stop. Your true state is ever-existent." --Nisargadatta Maharaj
"There is one kind of giving up that has, as its basis, the giving up of one thing in order to get something later. But there is a more genuine giving up where something is given up as being harmful or useless, by itself, not necessarily in exchange for something more acceptable. It is a question of giving up a concept or an illusion out of a conviction about its illusoriness, without any other motive." --Ramesh Balsekar
When you think there is something to meditate on, you only meditate on what you know already, so you turn in a vicious circle. In reality, meditation is from moment to moment; it is your background, it is the light behind all perceptions. It gives life to all perceptions; it gives reality to all that is perceived. You can never understand what meditation is or what God is, what love is or what peace or freedom is; it is beyond the mind. --Jean Klein
"Understanding" is not an intellectual, an emotional, or a passing thing. It is something that comes with action, and therefore it is a complete understanding and not a partial understanding. In understanding oneself, one's consciousness and its content--for there is no consciousness without content--one sees there are two principal factors: pleasure and fear. They cannot be separated. Where there is the pursuit of, the insistence on, and the demand for pleasure, there must be in its wake fear. In understanding fear, one must not disregard the fact of pleasure. --J. Krishnamurti
Our real nature is Liberation, but we imagine that we are bound and make strenuous efforts to become free, although all the while we are free. This is understood only when we reach that state. Then we shall be surprised to find that we were frantically striving to attain something that we always were and are." --Ramana Maharshi
Know then that true knowledge does not create a new Being for you; it only removes your "ignorant ignorance." Bliss is not added to your nature; it is merely revealed as your true and natural state, eternal and imperishable. The only way to be rid of your grief is to know and be the Self. How can this be unattainable? --Ramana Maharshi
You are--you always have been--where you want to be led. Actually, there is no "where" that can be led to. Awareness of this obvious position is the answer--just the apperception; nothing to be done. And the tragic irony is that such awareness and apperception cannot be an act of volition. Does your waking state come about by itself, or do you awaken yourself as an act of volition? Indeed, the least effort on "your" part will prevent what otherwise might have happened naturally and spontaneously. And the joke within the joke is that your deliberately not doing anything will also prevent it happening! It is simple, really; "doing."
"What I find difficult-and unacceptable, really-is the wishy-washy reliance on words, on concepts, of so much alleged spirituality. True spirituality is real, down to earth, concrete-it's coming home from appearance to reality." --Douglas E. Harding
The union that one discovers in contemplative prayer will not be reserved to that time. Moments of silence will overtake you in the course of daily life. Reality will tend to become more transparent. Its divine Source will shine through it. -- Thomas Keating
"There's Ramana's insistence that it's easier to see What and Who we really are than to see a gooseberry in the palm of our hand. All of which means that there are no preconditions for this essential in-seeing. To oneself one's true nature is forever on display, and how one can pretend otherwise is one of the world's great mysteries. It's available now, just as one is, and does not require the would-be seer to be holy, or virtuous, or learned, or clever, or special in any way. Rather the reverse. What a superb--and woefully neglected--advantage this is!" --Douglas Harding
"You are that which is prior to any kind of peace or conflict, prior to every sensation, perception, or concept. All this appears and disappears within you. Longing and seeking are also part of these appearances. You don't need the fulfillment of any kind of seeking in order to be what you already are. For this, nothing has to come and nothing has to go. You yourself are the fulfillment. --Karl Renz
"As part of the drama of manifestation we believe that we're just a little individual searching for our original, timeless nature. While we enjoy the game of seeking, strangely enough, what we're looking for is the closest thing to us, even closer than our breath." --Tony Parsons
At the moment of Enlightenment everything falls away--everything. Suddenly the ground beneath you is gone, and you are alone. You are alone because you have realized that there is no other; there is only THAT, and YOU ARE THAT. --Adyashanti
Those who don't feel this life pulling them like a river, those who don't drink dawn like a cup of springwater or take in the sunset like supper, those who don't want to change, let them sleep. --Rumi
Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don't look for quick results; there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will undergo a change, there will be more clarity in your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in your behavior. You need not aim at these--you will witness the change all the same. For what you are now is the result of inattention and what you become will be the fruit of attention. --Nisargadatta Maharaj
"The Center of my being is changeless, and where there is no change, there is not time. This, then, is forever my Reality, not something that comes and goes." --Douglas Harding
What surfaces during meditation are residues of the past. These residues are energy localized through association of ideas--energy mobilized into fear and insecurity. Remain a witness to all this. In being the choiceless observer, attention is motiveless, and all conditioning subsides. --Jean Klein
It is the nature of the life force to express itself through thoughts and words, so they will keep on coming. If you have to make an effort in the beginning not to get involved, make that effort until it becomes effortless. . . . Thoughts will come in consciousness; witnessing also takes place in consciousness. You must have the conviction that you are consciousness. --Nisargadatta Maharaj
Identification with the body is so total that it gives one a sense of separate identity. Now, the separate identity is merely a concept, a concept based on the individual body appearing solid. --Ramesh Balsekar
"The past and the future are simply part of the drama that keeps us locked into the illusion of being separate entities. Once the gate has opened into another possibility, then the real adventure begins . . . Realization does not emerge through our attempts to change our lives; it comes as a direct rediscovery of 'who' it is that lives." --Tony Parsons
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Your own sense of existence-awareness is immediately known and available at all times. It is not an attainment. There is no technique or process involved. You cannot gain it or lose it. It is here now.
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Thoughts and experiences never obscure your true nature. It is always completely free and available. We just did not see it because we were looking in the wrong direction. Once it is clearly pointed out to us, we can see this directly and with no effort.
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Once you see that who you are is constantly with you, you do not have an experience of moving in and out of peace or clarity. It is only due to contrary concepts that we seem to lose it. In fact, the thoughts are mistaken. Once we see this, the thoughts lose their grip.
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The belief that you are a separate person is the cause of all ignorance, suffering, anxiety, doubt, fear and so on — that is to say, all self-centered thinking. Have a direct look and see if you can find the person you have imagined yourself to be.
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The seeming separate “I” that we took ourselves to be was never really present. When that is seen to be absent, except as an imagined concept, the rug is pulled out from under the whole production. With no “I,” who has a problem? Who needs to do anything? Who needs to attain anything?
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When you see how direct and simple it is, the doubts, questions and problems get undercut at the source. The recognition of clear, present awareness is utterly beyond doubt. Nothing necessarily changes in the appearance of living, but things are no longer being filtered through a screen of unexamined beliefs and reference points.
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When it is seen that the individual is absent, all the questions fall to pieces and life in clarity remains. It is utterly simple, utterly profound — and utterly normal. The natural state could also be called the normal state!
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No matter where the mind jumps to, it is all taking place right within empty awareness. That is all there is to it. And you are that. You have always been that.
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Awareness, or your true nature, is not a thing or an object to be grasped by the senses or the mind. For this reason, the mind is utterly unable to understand what is being pointed out. Yet if I ask you “Are you aware?” you immediately recognize the presence of awareness, or the fact of your own being. True insight does not rely on the mind at all.
~ John Wheeler
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