Luminous Self

No matter how long the room has been dark, an hour or a million years, the moment the lamp of awareness is lit the entire room becomes luminous. You are that luminosity. You are that clear light.- Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

All life experiences are experienced within the luminous field of awareness. All the external experiences of life that seems to be external is actually experienced within the field. There is constant flow of experiences arising and passing within the filed.

Awareness is the medium which facilitates all experiences it is the space in which experience arise. On investigation, there is no edge, no dimension, no center found for the field. All objects appear in the field just as clouds appear with sky as the background, just movie appears with a screen in the background. Even the body and world appear in awareness. Our conventional belief and experience is that I am awareness is inside the body but fact is, the body is within field of awareness. The body, mind, and the world are experienced only by awareness.

The awareness is causeless self-arising, luminous, borderless, unlimited, and dimensionless, it is primary wisdom and intelligence, which is free from labels of samsara and moksha. It is spontaneous unconditioned presence since the very beginning. Its radiance pervades the whole of the manifested and the unmanifested. It is unaffected unmodifiable, nothing can be added nor removed from it, undisturbed, untarnished by the objects arising in its field. Even though, awareness lights-up and intimately touches all objects yet the field primordially pure, pristine, clear and peaceful. It is not mixed with the objects.

There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.― Bram Stoker

I  Am luminosity is the primordial intelligence and wisdom aware of itself, it experiences itself by itself.  The field of awareness cannot be known as an object- just as the screen can’t be known on which a movie is played.  This primordial knowledge is beyond comprehension of the finite mind.

The I Am, Self, Awareness Consciousness or Presence is the Eternal Light radiating divinity. Ignorance and impurities temporarily veil and distort the essential nature of awareness. Recognizing the constantly emitting light, enlightens the true nature clears all ignorance and impurities. The spark of eternity is present in all sentient beings, all have the same true nature and potential for enlightenment, for peace, harmony, love and happiness.

Awareness means you come with an inner light, you move fully alert. Each step is taken in awareness - the walking, the coming, the sitting - everything is done in full awareness.- Rajneesh

🙏 May the light within me illuminate the path for all beings for they may find the way!!

Thank you !!

 🙏

Chattering Mind

 Watch what you tell yourself, you’re likely to believe it. – Russ Kyle

Mind chatter, inner voice are verbal thoughts that construct the idea of the Self, strengthens illusion of an individual person. The validity of the inner voice is never questioned, it is believed it to me, I, my voice it comes from my body. The inner voice reflects beliefs, fears, hopes, ideas, and opinions of a person who considers the voice to be their own thinking. These thoughts created through generations of human conditioning and sustained by the illusionary Self. The constantly talking mind is narrating stories, opinions, and exaggerations and manipulating distorting realities.

Typically, ego is fearful of loss, failure, being hurt, non-existence and death. Identifying with the chatter the being starts to live in a fictional modality believing in the narrative in the head. The ego, tricks us into believing that our thoughts are one hundred percent true. Controlled by the very loud compelling voice, inner critic, and bullying brings self-doubt and negative self-perceptions, paranoia, panic attacks and choices made out of fear. The ego never ceases to stop telling stories reliving the past, agonizing family ties, sins, guilt, victimhood, and imaging and building the next story for the next experience. The self is completely consumed caught in the chatter, living the egoic dream searching for happiness -like being sucked down into quick sand.

Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.― John Lennon

A good movie is one which grasps attention of the audience. They identify with the characters feel their pain and pleasure.  Similarly, story in the head identifying with egoic characters monologue, dialogue or multilogue. The melodrama, every word will “seem real” and “feeling the emotions”.

When the limited self realizes that it is a figment relentlessly working towards a foolish and hopeless search for or pursuit of something unattainable. Having wasted a whole life being religiously loyal to the character in the story of “my life” to know it does not exists would be terrifying to the ego mind. Becoming a yogi, a spiritual quest, austerities, and practices is yet another story, voice in the head, an egoic pursuit. Mind is a story chatting machine. A life under the influence of mind chatter is disconnected from divine source and wisdom.

We must go beyond the constant clamor of ego, beyond the tools of logic and reason, to the still, calm place within us: the realm of the soul.-Deepak Chopra

Effective way of quieting the mind is connecting to the silent truth within. It would take courage to go beyond fiction stepping into neutral state not adding more thoughts, even analytical ones, or good intentions to the mind.  Not analyzing thoughts but becoming aware and shifting from identification to watching the mind behavior, thinking and generating emotions. It is like being aware the whole time that it is just a movie you are watching. Distancing and observing creates gaps between thoughts and they appear as clouds against background of the stillness of the sky. This opens up a new dimension of perceiving and revelation of true nature of true self i.e, eternal love. As purification continues there is falling away old thought patterns and freedom from inner critic and ego.

As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You’re not thinking about loving; you’re just being love, radiating like the sun.-Ram Dass

May all beings derive the capacity to become self-aware and self-realized ! 🙏

Thank you !!

 🙏

 AB

 

Pointer to Liberation

I am first and last freedom. – J Krishnamurti

I Am is like a prison door. Passing through this door to the outside world would lead to bondage. While seeking, on the inward path through the door would lead to the truth, freedom and eternity. Going outwards tangled in web of thoughts, images, feelings, perceptions, experiences, is the world or samsara. Inward journey is home bound to the infinity or nirvana.

The ‘I am’ is at the root of all appearance and the permanent link in the succession of events that we call life; but I am beyond the ‘I am’.- Sri Nisargadutta Maharaj

The knowledge I Am is the first subtle portal, root or the source from which thoughts of separate self, being a person, passes from eternity and appears in consciousness (from infinity to limitedness) and becomes time bound. On the way to dissolution, I Am is the last point through which thoughts pass and vanish into infinity. The I Am is the root thought from which all other thoughts arise. Therefore, being steadily aware of the root thought I Am, points directly to the substratum, sense of spacious awareness, beingness, consciousness, emptiness, nothingness.

The ‘I’-thought will be found to be the root-cause. Go deeper. The ‘I’-thought disappears and there is an infinitely expanded ‘I’-consciousness.- Sri Ramana

The sense of I Am a separate self, on investigation, has the first primary realization that it is an unbounded aware spacious presence and not a limited person. When attention is stationed and concentrated in sense of I Am, ignorance dissolves due to lack of attention. Non pursuance of thoughts, appearances, concepts, experiences and the world, results in weakening the mind, diminishes the flow and impact of thoughts. Attention resting in I am is the effortless natural state of awareness, natural state of being.

This I Am is the crucial turning point where attention rests, being focused on itself there is clearing of ignorance and realization of the truth that it is not a limited separate self, not a person but the eternal, infinite, universal I Am. Therefore, this is the light at the end of the tunnel for liberation seekers, doorway to eternity. 

Spiritual teachings have emphasized on simple technique to be aware and rest attention on I Am at all times; seek the source of I Am and it will vanish. If the I Am root thought is identified and pulled out, then all other thoughts are at the same time uprooted. 

If you can hold on to this knowledge ‘I am Self’ at all times, no further practice is necessary.—Annamalai Swami: Final Talks, page 39.

May collective efforts from all beings on the path of realization bear fruits and be liberated. 🙏

Thank You!! 

🙏

AB

Aliveness of the Moment

 

The Self is here and now, it is the only Reality. There is nothing else.-Ramana Maharshi

Life and aliveness is always Now and Here, there is only this Now moment and life happens Here; this is existence, presence, I am, consciousness. All thinking of past or future in only in this moment. Idioms such as, get real, wake up (finger snapping) – is shifting from conceptual world of thought to the Present. All life experiences are dealt in the Now and Here as they arise. Planning and strategizing also happen in the now and here; even though, they seem to be done earlier in the past.

Our conventional belief is that I am a mind in a body contained in time and space of the universe. The present moment or Now is not moving liner axis, as it may appear to be happening. All experiences take place Here, which it is not a point in space. It is non-local. All experiences the past, present and future existing together simultaneously Here and Now.

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.- Alan Watts

Thoughts and images of past and future arising from memory creates an idea of time. On investigation, an entity called time can never be found. Thoughts and images of an activities done earlier refers to the past, it gives an idea of a bygone, previous incident. But it is impossible to step back to that experience of that experience performed because there is only a memory of that former experience which is now appearing in the Now as thoughts and images. In the present Now, there is only a memory or experience of remembering of that activity.

Similarly, all activity can and only be experienced Here in terms of location. Experience of an event occurring -there- which is another apparent point in space, is just a memory that can be only remembered; and the remembrance happens only Here. Idea of space is an illusion, like a character in a movie experiences two dimensional screen as a three dimensional space in which he is moving around.

Probably, time and space are what infinite consciousness looks like from the finite mind of separate self. In my practice, while watching my mind it is evident that when thought ceases there is no experience of yesterday, today or tomorrow, no idea of place or location. I can experience still presence Here and Now. When thoughts resume, world, time and space kick-in. Time and space are limitations of mind but Here and Now are beyond grasp of mind. Sit and drill down into the depths this moment is unfathomable!!

It is mind which makes eternity appear as time and infinity as space. Time and Space are consciousness projected through thoughts and perception. Here and Now are a portal and a hint of reality.

There exists only the present instant… a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.- Meister Eckhart

May all beings fulfill their aims on the path and awaken to their true nature. 🙏

Thank you !!

🙏

AB

 

Self Separation

 

Man makes the mistake of separating himself from God and identifying himself with the body.-Swami Vivekananda

The true self or I am infinite awareness identifies with the labels, beliefs, feelings, emotions, thoughts, perceptions and experiences. This identification and attachment of I am consciousness with the experiences causes limitation, fragmentation and separation of I am. Consciousness is now trapped and tangled in web of delusion of conditioning which  gives a false sense of being an individual separate self, self-limiting i,e, I am this, I am that.

Separation and ego formation beings as child identifies with its given name, body, toys. Then identification of family ties, education, abilities, opinions, relationships. All these are thought forms imbued with sense of individual I and egoic identity and personality. Ego self is localized, limited, defensive, always lacking, complaining, in conflict and becomes a victim of its own projections, disconnected from the true essence. Identification covered with layers of ignorance and denial is the source of all suffering. 

With the belief in the individual entity/doer, problems never cease. When the illusory nature of the individual is seen, problems never arise.- Ramesh Balsekar

The egoic separate self gets satisfaction by feeling bad and pitying itself this behavior strengthens the sense of the false I. There is high self-esteem, an exaggerated sense of self-importance thoughts of being better than and superior to others, or being a victim emphasizes the fictitious self. I, me, myself, my story, my ancestry, titles etc, being in the past or future it believes to be living a life moving along a time line assuming birth to death. It believes and pretends to have a free will making choices and decisions that it is the doer of all actions and it is the source of thoughts feelings emotions. Egoic person is busy with the external world that it seldom turns around to itself. The highest activity the egoic self can engage is in itself.

Mostly, the identifications of self is with possessions, jobs and career, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, and belief systems strengthens  separation. Collective identification is often a political, nationalistic, racial, religious cause extremism, fanaticism, racism. At a subtle level, the sense of grandiose is the spiritual ego feeling superior to others.

If you are identified we will never have peace.- Krishnamurti

Personality or mask is the conditioning of the body mind that with engages with the world. Consciousness appearing as separate self is a mask through which the illusory play of consciousness or drama of life is enabled. Root cause of suffering arises when the Self shares the limitation of the personality and believes it to be real.

When realization and awakening starts flickering then there is gradual shift of the personality with a worldly mask towards the true self that is behind the mask. When the true nature is realized, the Illusory Separate Self come back with strongly, it is threatened by the new understanding waves of thoughts feeling emotions. The practice to turn around to the inner world causes eroding the old habits of the thoughts. Just as flowing river smoothens the rocks in its path so does inward attention polishes off the delusion of being a separate independent person and egoic self becomes sober subdued, it energy starts to dispel and weaken true self emerges.  Realization is continuous unfolding ongoing deeper, the cleansing process continues years, even life times. Don’t expect concrete results for there is no goal reached nothing to be attained. As the exterior impurities are washed away our true being whole and complete at the core is uncovered.

Liberation is never of the person it is from a person. – Sri Nisargadutta Maharaj

May all beings derive the capacity to discern separation. 🙏

Thank you !

🙏

AB