neti neti

"One Syllable shines forever in the Heart as Self; who can write It down?" ~Sri Bhagavan Ramana

The Morning of Manifestation sighed, the breeze of Grace breathed gently, ripples stirred upon the sea of Generosity. The clouds of Abundance poured down the rain upon the soil of preparedness; so much rain that the earth shone with Light. The lover, then, nourished with the water of life, awoke from the slumber of non-existence, put on the cloak of being and tied around his brow the turban of contemplation; he clinched the belt of desire about his waist and set forth with the foot of sincerity upon the path of the Search. The lover desires to see the Beloved with Certainty's Eye, and wanders a bewildered lifetime in this aspiration. Then suddenly with his heart's ear he hears a voice; "The magic spring that gives eternal Life, is in your own heart but you have blocked the flow." Then the Eye of Certainty opens, and staring inwardly at himself, the lover finds himself lost, vanished. But ... he finds the Beloved; and when he looks still deeper, realises the Beloved is himself. He exclaims, "Beloved, I sought you here and there, asked for news of you from all I met; then saw you through myself and found we were identical. Now I blush to think I ever searched for signs of you." Everyone with eyes sees just such a vision ... but remains ignorant of what he perceives. Every ant which leaves its nest and goes to the desert will see the sun, but not know what it sees. What irony! Everyone perceives Divine Beauty with Certainty's Eye, for in reality nothing exists but Transcendent Unity; They look, they see, but do not comprehend. They take no pleasure in the View, For to enjoy it one must know through the Truth of Certainty What he is seeing, through Whom, and why. And so, the lover seeks the Vision in order that he might pass away from existence; he knocks on the door of non-existence, for there he was once at peace. There he was both seer and seen, Both viewer and viewed ... Because nothing in himself. When awakening from that peace and coming to be, he became the veil of his own sight and was deprived of Vision. Know yourself: a cloud drifting before your sun. Cut yourself off from your senses and behold your sun of intimacy. If this screen ... which is you ... is struck from before your eyes, the Beloved will find the Beloved, and you will be entirely lost. Then you will say: "By day I praised You but never knew it; by night slept with You without realising; fancying myself to be myself; but no, I was You and never knew it." With the Eye of the Heart the lover now sees --- The Beloved's Loveliness owns a hundred thousand faces; gaze upon a different fair one in every atom; for She needs must show to every separate thing a different aspect of Her beauty. Gazing from every angle on that precious countenance in Thy face we see our own --- hence the infinitude of descriptions. Thus it is that every lover gives a different sign of the Beloved and every Gnostic a different explanation; every realised one seems to point to something different, yet each of them declares, "Expressions are many but Thy loveliness is one; Each of us refers to that single Beauty." ~Fakhruddin 'Iraqi

The saying in question refers to a zealous man, proclaiming his willingness to follow the Lord anywhere. Jesus admonished him to count the cost. Outwardly homeless and yet, home at heart... "not of this world." "Come and buy of me gold, tried by fire..." "Sell all your possessions, for that one pearl of great price..." There is idleness in dynamism, and liveliness in stillness. Oh the irony of forsaking oneself in order to gain oneself! Even God kills himself to be revived anew! Such misery in birth, such beauty in death. We've all robbed Peter just to pay Paul. The good news is, all debts are forgiven, thus nothing is ever lost.

"Someone sees in a dream that they are a ruler. They are seated on a throne with servants, chamberlains and princess standing by. They say, “I am ruler, and there is no ruler but I.” They say this in their sleep. When they wake up and see no one in the house but themself, they say, “I am, and there is no other than that I Am.” To realize this, one must be fully awake." ~Rumi

"Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment." ~Chogym Trungpa

"Good and evil have an equal share in moulding character, and in some instances misery is a greater teacher than happiness. In studying the great characters the world has produced, I dare say, in the vast majority of cases, it would be found that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than praise." ~Swami Vivekananda

Welcome stovepipe! -I'm an over the road tanker trucker, delivering food-grade veggie oils, chocolate, cocoa butter, etc. -I only see the "Tao" so, my work, life and all the people I'm privileged to become acquainted with, is That. -Long-haul trucking requires significant focus, attention to detail, and most of all - patience. It can be intense at times. But I must say that at other times it seems quite effortless. I've fearfully come to my senses on many long nights in which I've driven large stretches of highway totally unaware of my actions, without incident. Unconscious of it all. Samadhi while driving big rigs? Perhaps. Surely, someone was driving...

We could say tradition, but dare I say... One is made to test the reigns of their experience such that they discover all of which they are not. In so doing, they finally settle into who they've subtly known themselves to be all along. Or perhaps, experiencing the journey of realizing oneself... is reason enough.

Uddalaka had a son called Shvetaketu. When he was twelve, his father said to him, ‘It is time for you to find a spiritual teacher. Everyone in this family has studied the holy scriptures and the spiritual way.’ So Shvetaketu went to a teacher and studied the scriptures for twelve years. He returned home very proud of his intellectual knowledge. His father observed him and said, ‘My boy, you seem to have a high opinion of yourself; you are proud of your learning. But did you ask your teacher for the spiritual knowledge that enables you to hear the unheard, think the unthought and know the unknown?’ ‘What is that knowledge, Father?’ asked Shvetaketu. ‘Just as by knowing a lump of clay, everything that is made of clay can be known, since any differences are only words, and the essential reality is clay. In the same way by knowing a piece of gold, all that is made of gold can be known, since any differences are only words, and the reality is only gold.' Shvetaketu responded, ‘My teachers must not have known this or they would have taught it to me. Father, please teach me this knowledge.’ ‘I will,’ replied his father. ‘In the beginning there was only Being. Some people claim that in the beginning there was nothing at all and that everything has come out of nothing. But how can this be true? How can that which is, come from that which is not? In the beginning there was only one Being, and that Being thought, “I want to be many so I will create.” Out of this creation came the cosmos. There is nothing in the cosmos that doesn’t come from that one Being. Of everything that exists, this Being is the innermost Self. He is the truth, the Self Supreme. And you, Shvetaketu, you – are that!’ Shvetaketu asked, ‘Please teach me more about the Self, Father.’ ‘Let’s start with sleep. What happens when we sleep? When a person is absorbed in dreamless sleep, he is one with the Self although he doesn’t know it. We say he sleeps but we mean he sleeps in the Self. ‘A tethered bird grows tired from flying in every direction, finding no rest anywhere, and settles down at last on the very same perch on which it is tied. In the same way the mind, tired of wandering around here and there settles down at last in the Self, its life and breath, to which it is bound. All creatures have their source in that Being. He is their home; He is their strength. ‘When a man is dying, speech folds into mind, mind folds into life, life dissolves into light, and his light merges into that one Being. That Being is the seed, the truth, the Self, and you, Shvetaketu, you – are that!’ ‘Please tell me more, Father.’ ‘My son, bees make honey by gathering nectar from many flowers to make their honey, so no one drop of honey can say that it came exactly from one specific flower. You can’t identify the juice of one particular flower in the honey. And so it is with creatures like us who merge in that Being, whether in sleep or death. ‘And as the rivers that flow from the east to the west merge in the sea and become one with it, forgetting that they were ever separate rivers, so all creatures lose their separateness when they merge into pure Being. Whatever creature it may be – tiger, lion, wolf, boar, mosquito, worm – it only becomes aware of a particular life when it is born into it or is awake. ‘If you strike at the root of a tree, it bleeds but still lives. If you strike at the trunk, the sap oozes, but the tree lives on. The Self as life fills the tree and supports it; it flourishes in happiness gathering food through its roots. However, if life departs from one branch, that branch withers, and when life leaves the whole tree, the entire tree withers. Remember my son, your body dies, but your Self does not.’ Uddalaka told Shvetaketu to bring him a fruit from a nearby banyan tree and to break it open. Shvetaketu did and said, ‘There are seeds inside, all very small.’ ‘Now break one of the seeds and tell me what you see.’ ‘Nothing, Father.’ Uddalaka said, ‘My son, this great banyan tree has grown from a seed so small that you cannot see it. Believe me, an invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe. ‘Now, take this salt and put it in some water and bring it to me tomorrow morning.’ The next morning Shvetaketu looked for the salt but couldn’t find it because it had dissolved. Uddalaka asked his son to taste the water. ‘Salty,’ he said, adding, ‘the salt will always remain in the water.’ “That’s right. The salt permeates the water, just like the Self. Even though we cannot see it, the Self is within all things and there is nothing that doesn’t come from Him. “This invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe. That is reality. That is truth. And you, Shvetaketu, you – are that!’ Chandogya Upanishad

The intensity of sincere desire with which one wishes to know their deity is commensurate with the intensity of the "merge." Indeed, the direct manifestation of this experience is enough to melt one's world as one knows it. Nonetheless, regardless of whether it be the consuming divine radiance of Siva or Christ's immersive baptism by fire, "God" will never give more than one can handle.

Back together, putting it apart and taking it.. the urge to merge from ism to ism.. meditation of the objects, Faery's and Gods.. attachment to the unattached. Single point mindfulness, upon single point mindedness.. mindedness open absolute, which requires enlightenment attainment needed for the mind of peace.. Nevermind. All things encompass Yoga! What Yoga can we speak of and not call practice?.. what? All miracles are of life!: Yoga asanas posing hatha miracles absorbing.. Can any yoga mind range deep into the insights of Buddhist concepts?

Yes! I hoped it would become contagious!

~Jivanmukti, Liberation Here and Now

"You haven't understood, until you've solved the riddle of the one who thinks he has understood." ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Be thankful always for a slight glimpse of the bird, even if the song is not heard." ~Swami Shantananda Puri

Is not the "waking up" within a dream, a figment of the dream itself? Mind is the host of ghosts, a graveyard of ideas. When sleep is deep, without dreaming, where has this mind gone? From where does it arise?

"The dreamer can be dreamed, the dreaming and what can be dreamed, but who can dream the dreamer?" ~"Echoes of Silence - Avadhut Gita Revisited" by Karl Renz.

No man is your friend, No man is your enemy, Every man is your teacher. - unknown

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With the profound conviction that you alone are, comes a world experience shifted to the background to such a degree that it may as well be said to not exist. Everything is perceived as only self, a laser-like focus of self-abidance in which focus is useless. There is nothing to focus upon when you are it. Modifications of differentiating between waking states, awareness/unawareness or levels cease, because "mind" has ceased. The knowledge of perception and the knowledge of non-perception is also self. Once the phantom menace that is ego is exposed, the illusion of its annihilation is also. The tragic "death" of our on-stage character is a cosmic joke's punchline, the ultimate plot twist whereby ego is known to have only been oneself in disguise.