What is this thing called enlightenment that you are chasing?

Acharya Prashant: She said that she feels worst today. She told that she came to India in 1989. Experience creates respect for her, the kind of commitment she has shown, the devotion she has put in all these years. And at the same time I found it quite tragic that someone should waste an entire lifetime chasing enlightenment. What you have to say about it?

Listener: I don’t feel it’s wise sincerely. Today I spent some time reading a poet named Rabia. I read about her life that she has been sold to sex trade and being forced to work as a sex worker for so many years and in that time yearning so much for union with God and upon fifty years old she finally got released from this and went on to become a very renowned saint who writes some of the most amazing poetry I have ever…

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God is Seeking Himself – Jean Klein

Sat Sangha Salon

There may come a moment in life when the world no longer stimulates us and we feel deeply apathetic, even abandoned. This can motivate us towards the search for our real nature beyond appearances. When we no longer find interest in activities and states, when we no longer feel much pleasure in objects and human relationships, we may find ourselves asking: “Is there something wrong with this world or with my attitude towards it?” This serious doubt can lead us to ask: “What is the meaning of existence? What is life? Who am I? What is my true nature?” Sooner or later any intelligent person asks these questions.

As we live with these questions, look at them closely, we become aware that the “me” always seems to be at the center of things playing several roles: “I am cold. I am tired. I am working.” With a more open-minded alertness…

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The Paradox of Seeking Enlightenment

You set out seeking enlightenment as the solution to all the ills that beset life as is ordinarily lived. On this quest, if you are lucky, sooner than later you get told “You are that which you are seeking. The seeker is the sought.” There may be several reasons that are offered as to why … Continue reading The Paradox of Seeking Enlightenment →

Discovering the Truth

As long as you take the world seriously and seek something from it, be it physical, intellectual or emotional your mind will be active and will rebel against falling silent. And without a silent mind you cannot discover the Truth.

Mind is the Unreal – Osho

Sat Sangha Salon

It seems as if everything I perceive in or out of meditation is my own creation or projection. I can’t distinguish between what I see, feel or am creating.

Osho, what is?

There is no need to distinguish between thoughts, dreams and reality. If you try, you will feel more confused. There is no way to distinguish, because as far as mind is concerned everything appears in the mind as a thought. It may be real, it may not be real; but the moment anything appears in the mind it appears in the form of thought.

You cannot distinguish, and there is no need. And don’t go on that journey, because that journey becomes a journey of thinking, and meditation is lost. Rather, on the contrary, remain centered in your witnessing. Don’t be worried by the objects in the mind; whatsoever they are, they are mind stuff. You simply remain…

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Does stillness of mind lead to liberation?

Tom Das

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Advaita Bodha Deepika is a traditional text and a masterpiece, summarising the methods and techniques of advaita vedanta. It was a favourite text of Sri Ramana Maharshi and was often recommended by him. Here is what it says about how to attain liberation, the following is from Chapter 3:

17…Master: With complete stillness of mind, samsara will disappear root and branch. Otherwise there will be no end to samsara, even in millions of aeons (Kalpakotikala).

18. Disciple: Cannot samsara be got rid of by any means other than making the mind still?

M: Absolutely by no other means; neither the Vedas, nor the shastras nor austerities, nor karma, nor vows, nor gifts, nor recital of scriptures of mystic formulae (mantras), nor worship, nor anything else, can undo the samsara. Only stillness of mind can accomplish the end and nothing else.

19. D: The scriptures declare that only Knowledge can do…

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Satsang with Papaji

(Selections from http://www.satsangbhavan.net/santsang-with-papaji-reading/) This is the proper time for all of us to introduce the mind to the Self. What is the Self? It is your own original nature: satyam, shivam, sundaram - which means truth, consciousness, bliss. This is the Self which was before the origin and which is going to be after the end. … Continue reading Satsang with Papaji →

Don’t Abandon Existence – Osho

Sat Sangha Salon

Is it not necessary to desire, to long and to seek truth and avoid the untrue, to seek truth ad renounce the false?

Divyananda, there is no way to seek truth because truth is not far away. Truth is not “there” somewhere so that you have to go to it, so that you have to reach to it; truth is not to be sought because truth is the very being of the seeker. How can you seek the seeker? How can you know the knower? That is impossible. You cannot encounter yourself. You are the truth.

Hence all seeking is futile, but one learns only through seeking. One learns this tremendously important fact, that all seeking is useless, only through seeking; there is no other way to learn it. You seek and you fail, you seek again and you fail; slowly slowly it becomes clear to you that seeking itself…

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Creation of the Universe

(from Swami Paramarthananda's Commentary on Drik-Drsya Viveka) What is creation? Creation can be defined as the production of an effect or a product from a cause. When an effect is produced out of a cause what happens exactly? What is the mechanism? The words cause, effect, etc., are normally used very loosely. Take the example … Continue reading Creation of the Universe →

David Godman on Ramana Maharshi’s Highest Teaching

These [Ramana Maharshi's] verbal teachings flowed authoritatively from his direct knowledge that consciousness was the only existing reality. Consequently, all his explanations and instructions were geared to convincing his followers that this was their true and natural state. Few of his followers were capable of assimilating this truth in its highest and most undiluted form and … Continue reading David Godman on Ramana Maharshi’s Highest Teaching →