This body is a temple, and God is seated inside you. But you are not going to see him because you are always going outside. Because you are not aware of God inside, you run after other, outside things. This human body, this temple that has been given to you, is a very rare birth. If you reject it and the opportunities it gives to you, it will be a tremendous loss. You don't know when these circumstances will be given to you again. Nobody knows. You don't know if this desire for liberation will ever come to you again.

~ Papaji, The Fire of Freedom, Edited by David Godman

If you think of Arunachala just once

If you think of Arunachala just once, Arunachala responds by trying to draw you into itself. It does this by making you think about itself more and more. When the thoughts are strong and continuous, it makes you surrender completely. Like a spider, it then pulls you into its web and ultimately destroys you. So, in the case of ripe devotees, it is possible to say that a single thought of Arunachala can lead, step by step, to liberation.

~ Annamalai Swami, Living by the Words of Bhagavan by David Godman

See demons as demons: that is the danger.
Know that they are powerless: that is the way.
Understand them for what they are: that is deliverance.
Recognize them as your father and mother: that is their end.
Realise that they are creations of the mind: they become its glory.
When these truths as known, all is liberation.

~ Milarepa

the Grace of our Lord

Removing the false view of things which we find so bewildering, [Grace] grants us the supreme gift of awakening into the state of final liberation. Upon this broad earth, so full of contradictions, it rouses us from the fundamental sleep of the senses, which is ruled by desire alone, the Grace of our Lord.

~ Sri Ramana Anubhuti

Once the decision is taken, there is no moving away from it

Q: Has any one of those persons coming here become a jnani?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: A number of those who have come here have acquired the knowledge, but only superficially. No one has really studied what the knowledge is; no one has really grasped the full meaning. What are they doing now? They are entangled in wanting, desiring, and this has made them forget the knowledge. Very few will get this knowledge correctly and absorb it deeply into their hearts. Once you have understood the origin of this movement, this activity, and the reason, the nature of this desire, then only can you return to what you are. Unless you are firm about it, you will not understand.

~ from a talk on April 15, 1980

and from a talk four days later:

Sri Nisargadatta: You must come to a firm decision. You must forget the thought that you are a body and be only the knowledge "I Am," which has no form, no name. Just be. When you stabliize in that beingness it will give all the knowledge and all the secrets to you, and when the secrets are given to you, you transcend the beingness, and you, the Absolute, will know that you are also not the consciousness. Having gained all this knowledge, having understood what is what, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility. Beingness is transcended, but beingness is available.

Q: What is that state?

Sri N: It is something like a deer taking rest in the shadow of a tree. The color of the shadow is neither light nor very dark, this is the borderland. Neither jet black nor very bright, halfway between them, that is that shadow. Deep blue, like clouds, that is that state. That is also the grace of the Sat-Guru. Everything is flowing out of that state, but this principle does not claim anything, is not involved in anything that is coming out of it, but this beingness is available. That deep, dark blue state, the grace of the Sat-Guru. This is the state of the jnani, this is a very, very rare, natural samadhi state, the most natural state, the highest state.

You must have a firm conviction about this. Once the decision is taken, there is no moving away from it. The fruition of your spirituality is to fully understand your own true nature, to stabilize in your true identity. One must have patience, the capacity to wait and see.

The darkness that you see when you close your eyes, that is the shadow of the Guru's grace; don't forget it, always keep it in mind. Take rest in the shadow of the Guru's grace. Whenever you remember the words of the Guru, you are in the shade of the Guru's grace.

Ultimately, everything merges into the Self. You may come across great difficulties, but your courage and stability in the Self should be firm.

~ from Prior to Consciousness. (Sri Nisargadatta left his body a year and a half after these talks.)

Bhagavan's Promises about the mind

Give me your mind

'You should offer up to me the bright ruby of your mind. That is the gift that will bring me delight.'

'The sweet love I have for such a mind I do not have for anything else.' Padam desires this.

Padam receives the minds of loving devotees as an offering, swallowing them through a ruby-red light.

Padam accepts only the mind as a fitting offering, rejecting everything else as being incompatible.

~ Padamalai, Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi recorded by Muruganar, edited and annotated by David Godman

~~~

The true Guru wishes only to liberate us. Everything He does and says points to this and this alone. Everything He does, He does for our sake, and no convoluted explanations are necessary to see His actions as God's Grace.

I am eternally grateful that Sri Bhagavan lived every moment of His "embodied" life in perfect alignment with His Father, Arunachala-Siva. Every interaction He ever had with any"one", from human to wasp to leaf, was an expression of His Divinity. Every story, every word, is a doorway we can enter to know Him better.

Glory to our Father and His most beautiful Feet! May He rest Them on our heads so we are rendered powerless to withhold our minds from Him. May we become capable of giving Him the gift He asks for.

neither hold onto anything nor reject anything

Ashtavakra said:

Bondage is when the mind longs for something, grieves about something, rejects something, holds on to something, is pleased about something or displeased about something. 8.1

Liberation is when the mind does not long for anything, grieve about anything, reject anything, or hold on to anything, and is not pleased about anything or displeased about anything. 8.2

Bondage is when the mind is tangled in one of the senses, and liberation is when the mind is not tangled in any of the senses. 8.3

When there is no "me," that is liberation, and when there is "me" there is bondage. Consider this carefully, and neither hold on to anything nor reject anything. 8.4

~ Ashtavakra Gita (translation by John Richards)

to read the whole Ashtavakra Gita, see:
http://bhagavan-ramana.org/ashtavakragita.html

back the way we came

In the hall where Bhagavan used to give darshan there was a chimney. The chimney was closed on all sides with steel mesh, except at the bottom. One day, a beautiful small bird somehow entered it and became trapped inside this chimney. The bird found itself trapped in conditions diametrically opposed to its natural environment: the vast space where it could fly freely. From the moment it entered the chimney, it was frantically struggling to escape, but all its efforts proved futile. Why? Because, forgetting the way it came, it was repeatedly trying to escape through all the closed routes. Sri Bhagavan took this opportunity to reveal a great truth:

This bird has given up the all-pervasive space, its natural place of residence. It has been caught in this limited space, which is opposed to its nature. Not knowing how to escape from this prison, it is agitated and afraid.

Like this bird, jivas have also given up their natural place of residence, the vast space of consciousness. Through the delusion of ignorance they have become trapped in the prison of the body. Without knowing how to escape, they are tormented by various afflictions. The ceaseless efforts of this bird to reach its natural place of residence are unsuccessful because they are directed upwards, the way of bondage, instead of downwards, the way it came.

Similarly, the reason why the jivas' ceaseless efforts to attain freedom are unsuccessful is because they too are directed outwards, the way of bondage, instead of inwards, the way they came.

The natural tendency of the bird to go upwards asserts itself even in its attempt for freedom. Likewise, the natural tendency of jivas to roam outwards asserts itself even in their attempts at liberation. This is the jiva's natural tendency.

If, through true discrimination and awareness, the jiva is made to turn back from outward-directed sight to inward sight, and if it remains fixed there, it is certain that it would attain liberation in an instant.


~ Sadhu Natanananda, Sri Ramana Darsanam

the prasad of the mind

The Necessity of self-enquiry

Unless you enquire, within yourself, through yourself, into yourself, it will be impossible for you to become one with your own Self.

Except for true jnana-vichara [self-enquiry], there is no other effective means of attaining the state of supreme bliss.

Until one enquires into and knows one's own real nature, the agitation experienced by the mind will not cease.

Those who do not realise their real nature by careful enquiry cannot gain bliss, the prasad of the mind.

For your true state to merge in your Heart as your own nature, you must enquire and know that true state. This is the only way.

Those who leave the path of self-enquiry, the way of liberation, and wander off along the myriad forest tracks, will encounter only confusion.

The state of the Self is reached by going back the way one came. Whichever other path one travels on, it has to take you here and take refuge here.

~ Padamalai: Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar