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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Date: Fri Apr 25, 2003 6:56 am
Subject: The Greatest Help om_namah_shi...

Nisargadatta said, 'The greatest help that can be given to anyone is
to take them beyond the need for further help'.

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=57272

http://www.sentient.org/ramesh.htm

Ramesh S. Balsekar

Right behind where Ramesh sits, in his house in Bombay, is a small
cupboard with vase of flowers.
Next to them is a Laminated board with these words written in Large
Letters:

Self-Realization or Enlightenment is nothing more than the deepest
possible understanding that there is no individual doer of any
action - neither you nor anyone else. Also you are not the thinker of
any thoughts, nor the experiencer of any experiences - they happen.
When IT happens, no bright lights are likely to flash in your head!

Quotes from Ramesh:

The universe is uncaused, like a net of jewels in which each is only
the reflection of all the others in a fantastic interrelated harmony
without end.

Self-Realization is effortless. What you are trying to find is what
you already are.

Enlightenment is total emptiness of mind. There is nothing you can do
to get it. Any effort you make can only be an obstruction to it.

If you but cease from useless conceptualizing, you will be what you
are and what you have always been.

Seeing truly is not merely a change in the direction of seeing, but a
change at its very center, in which the seer himself disappears.

The only ultimate understanding is that nothing is, not even he who
understands.

For enlightenment to happen the perceiver must turn right around and
wake up to the fact that he is face to face with his own nature -
that HE IS IT. The spiritual seeker ultimately finds that he was
already at the destination, that he himself IS what he had been
seeking and he was in fact already Home.

Concepts can at best only serve to negate one another, as one thorn
is used to remove another, and then be thrown away. Only in deep
silence do we leave concepts behind. Words and language deal only
with concepts, and cannot approach Reality.

Between pure Awareness and Awareness reflected as consciousness there
is a gap which the mind cannot cross. The reflection of the sun in a
drop of dew is not the sun itself.

Ceasing to conceptualize means ceasing to perceive objectively, which
means perceiving non- objectively. It is to see the universe without
choice or judgement and without getting into subject- object
relationship. What happens then? Nothing, except that you are what
you were before you were born: everything.

When the apparent but illusory identity called a person has
disappeared into the awareness of total potentiality that it is and
has always been, this is called enlightenment.

Manifestation may adopt any number of forms but the substratum of all
the myriad forms is Consciousness, without which there cannot be
anything whatsoever.

Nothing can have any meaning, or even any existence, except in terms
of something else.

The man of wisdom is devoid of ego even though he may appear to use
it. His vacant or fasting mind is neither doing anything nor not
doing anything. He is outside of volition, neither this nor that. He
is everything and nothing.

Your doubts will never be totally destroyed until perception has gone
beyond mere phenomenality, and such perception is not a matter of
will but of Grace.

Only that which was prior to the appearance of this body-
consciousness is your true identity. That is Reality. It is here and
now, and there is no question of anyone being able to reach for it or
grasp it.

The same Consciousness prevails at rest as the Absolute and in motion
as duality. When the sense of "me" disappears completely, duality
vanishes in ecstasy.

To any conceptual problem there cannot be any valid answer except to
see the problem in perspective as an empty thought, and that there is
no such thing as a "problem" which is other than merely conceptual.

An experience is never factual but only conceptual. Whatever an
experience may be, it is nonetheless only a happening in
consciousness.

The manifest phenomenal aspect of what we are and the unmanifest
noumenal Absolute are not different. Phenomena are what we appear to
be. Noumenon is what we ARE.

==================

http://www.sentient.org/sailor.htm

Sailor Bob

Bob Adamson spent 1976 with Nisargadatta Maharaj. He never came back

THE PERSON IS NOT THE REALITY

Talk given by Sailor Bob at the Theosophical Society, Melbourne,
Australia

3rd August 1997

Good afternoon

Most seekers start to search because they are unhappy. They don't
feel complete or whole.

And they hear somewhere about enlightenment, truth, self-realization,
something along those lines, and they begin their search. Hoping to
find this liberation, this self-realization.

And most of them seek "out there", where we've been conditioned to
seek from the time we're little children. We start our search "out
there", for a better education, for a new house, a family, a good
relationship, a new car, seeking on that level from the beginning,
and then later on it might develop into what we call the spiritual
search, the search for realization or liberation.

And it's always "out there".

But here I say, start looking for reality, for truth, the only place
to start from is the only reality of which you are absolutely
certain, and that's the fact of your own being. There is no one
sitting here today who can say "I am not". Each one of us knows
that "I AM". And no one can ever negate that being. But you see,
again because of our conditioning, we move away from that being-ness
as we always have, into becoming. And we look at becoming at some
future time.

And what future time has there ever been? Isn't it always "now"?

Isn't the living-ness, the actuality, right in this moment?

I can never live this moment again. But if I'm focused in memory,
yesterday, the past, whether a few moments ago or years ago, I'm
missing out on life.

And this is what I'd constantly done for many years.

And I go on, all through my life, seeking, if I do this, or put this
practice in, or try this or something else, then I will "become…".

So I use the analogy, it's just like pulling a bucket of water out of
the river. If the river is flowing and I pull a bucket of water out,
as soon as you've got the bucket of water out of the river, that
water is dead, its finished, and the river is left behind.

That's what happens in life. I've got this image of myself based on
the past events, experiences, and the conditioning that's been my
overall life. And I've added this image to that pure, first
thought, "I AM". And so "I am this, Australian, male, and this
happened to me and blah blah blah" and formed a mental concept of
what I believe this person is.

And that's a dead ending. Life is constantly leaving that image
behind. So, when I become something, I create another image in the
future, "if I do such and such, then this will happen", well when
that so called future comes, maybe this thing I have worked towards
will be there, but will that be the finality? Will that be the
happiness, the completeness?

Of course not, because that also will be a dead end.

And as life comes up with that, it passes that, and that's let in the
past.

And so, I go on continually. Creating these concepts of what I will
become and what will happen. And if life is leaving me behind and I
don't seem to be able to achieve it, then, if I'm a Westerner and
from the Christian religion, I'll probably say "Well its not going to
happen to me this time, but some future time I'll die and go to
heaven and be resurrected in some future time", another concept of
the future. Or, if I belong to some eastern religion, "I'll die and
re-incarnate, and come back as something else". Another mental
concept.

As I say, I can go on like this all my life unless I'm fortunate
enough like I was, to meet somebody who might say "Hey listen – have
you ever stopped for a moment and questioned who or what you are?".

You need to have a look at this idea, that you're a person… a
separate entity, an individual.

Who is this "me" that you believe yourself to be. Have you ever
investigated and had a look. And when I start to do that, I find that
the false cannot stand up to that investigation.

And I begin to see that all the things that I've believed about
myself are erroneous. All through my life I've lived through
ignorance and by that I mean, lived by ignoring my true nature,
ignoring my reality and living in some mental image.

When I begin to question this and ask "Am I this body?", and I begin
to look, where is this center that I call "ME", because in most of
the great traditions they say that self-centeredness, selfishness and
self-will is the problem, they tell us to be selfless. But where is
this self? Where is this self center that I call "ME"? You see that
very thought "I AM", the primary thought, which I cannot negate, is
not the reality. Even that is not the reality. But it is the closest
I can ever get to it with the mind. It is the primary thought. Prior
to that thought, as all of you sitting here must realize, in this
present awareness, before you think "I AM", each one of you knows
with that innate, intrinsic intelligence within you, is constantly
letting you know that you are, without using that primary thought.

And that "I AM" thought, in its purity, it isn't too bad. But, you
see, added to it is all this other rubbish. All this conditioning,
habit patterns, things, events and experiences that happen in my
life. Looking in the body, for this center, as hard as I look, I can
never find a particular spot that I can say "This is where it all
start". I can look at my heart, I can look at that knot in my stomach
I used to get, or the ache in my throat, or any of these places, to
try and find where I begin. I cant find it.

And going back, where does this body come from? Isn't it the essence
of the food that was eaten by my father which became the sperm? And
the essence of the food eaten by my mother which became the ovum? And
didn't it start off as a single cell? And didn't that cell multiply,
double and multiply again? So if that single cell is where it all
started, then that would be the center. That would be what I am. But
we all know that that cell is long since gone. We know that there are
millions of cells in this body which are dying right now.

http://members.austarmetro.com.au/~adamson7/Page_1x.html

Nisargadatta told Bob that 'the greatest help that can be given to
anyone is to take them beyond the need for further help'.

Bob says: ...."This Nisargadatta did this by pointing to the reality,
the actuality, THAT I AM. Now, I abide as THAT'.

So as the opportunity arises, Bob passes on this message to those who
are attracted to this wisdom.

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