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Thread: Reveling as Self

  1. #1

    Reveling as Self

    CAUTION: These are my personal musings as I study various vedantic texts. As such they may involve rejection of various ideas. Some of these ideas may be useful to some and so, if anything seems hurting your sentiments, please ignore and do not proceed with these statements. The qualification of a student for a particular teaching is not by labeling ... it happens automatically ... even as the student reads, he might dislike advaita. Advaita involves rejection of ideas that run counter to it and this cannot be avoided in any advaitic writeup.

    Friends,
    I would like to use this thread to post some random musings ... some of them would be like zen koans ... a few may be useful explanations ... and many of these may be borrowed from elsewhere !!

    The idea is to share a few musings on meditative living ... Self Abidance.
    they could be useful for the readers as much as myself, as I muse over them !!


    Love!
    Silence
    Last edited by silence_speaks; 05 November 2014 at 12:35 AM.
    Come up, O Lions, and shake off the delusion that you are a sheep

  2. #2

    Re: Reveling as Self

    Heal the Wound, Don't Just Clean The Pus


    Thoughts arise as long as the potential for thoughts exists within.
    Our objective in sadhana is not to "eliminate thoughts" but to "eliminate the potential for thoughts"

    Its like a wound from which pus is coming out. We have to not just clean the pus ... we have to operate the wound which causes the pus.

    Most often people confuse by thinking that sadhana means to eliminate thoughts. A serious sadhaka would know that some times during sadhana lot of thoughts may arise and its only good that they arise. Like air entrapped in water, that has to come out. The pus has to be cleaned, but more importantly the wound of ignorance [about our true state] needs to be healed.
    Come up, O Lions, and shake off the delusion that you are a sheep

  3. #3

    Re: Reveling as Self

    Peace Need Not Always Mean Spiritual Development

    Most often peace is seen as a measure of spiritual development. This is also a problem. This kind of idea is extended to say that a particular guru is very spiritual because one gets peace in his presence ! This should not be used as a "measurement" technique to gauge the guru's spiritual development.

    Peace may be experienced due to various reasons including physical or emotional circumstances. If I am a smoker, non-smoking disturbs my peace, but that is spiritual development. Many times, Facing the stiuation that is not conducive is true spiritual development.

    and if a chosen guru does not speak what "We like to hear", we may not experience peace in his presence. Sometimes we want to just hear what we think is right... not what is correct !
    Come up, O Lions, and shake off the delusion that you are a sheep

  4. #4
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    Re: Reveling as Self

    hariḥ oṁ
    ~~~~~~
    namasté

    It seems to me your post title can be viewed as Reveling in the SELF, or it can be Revealing the SELF. Yet I am not certain of Reveling as Self. Perhaps you can add some clarification for the reader?

    Either way will work... Yet to me the Self is revealed, but not at 100% clarity. We are nothing but the Self, so to reveal it suggests there is another Self and this is not possible ( so says ramaṅa mahaṛṣi ).

    iti śivaṁ
    यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

  5. #5
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    Re: Reveling as Self

    namaste,
    This is my favourite. I came across it when reading osho many years ago.

    Sound of one hand

    The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protege named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master's room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidance in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.

    Toyo wished to do sanzen also.

    "Wait a while," said Mokurai. "You are too young."

    But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.

    In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai's sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.

    "You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together," said Mokurai. "Now show me the sound of one hand."

    Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From his window he could hear the music of the geishas. "Ah, I have it!" he proclaimed.

    The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.

    "No, no," said Mokurai. "That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You've not got it at all."

    Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. "What can the sound of one hand be?" He happened to hear some water dripping. "I have it," imagined Toyo.

    When he next appeared before his teacher, Toyo imitated dripping water.

    "What is that?" asked Mokurai. "That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again."

    In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind. But the sound was rejected.

    He heard the cry of an owl. This also was refused.

    The sound of one hand was not the locusts.

    For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year he pondered what the sound of one hand might be.

    At last little Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. "I could collect no more," he explained later, "so I reached the soundless sound."

    Toyo had realized the sound of one hand.
    satay

  6. #6

    Re: Reveling as Self

    Namaste,

    "Three worlds in a puddle."

    JAI MATA DI
    || जय माता की ||

  7. #7

    Re: Reveling as Self

    Dear Yajvan ji,
    Namasthe!




    It seems to me your post title can be viewed as Reveling in the SELF, or it can be Revealing the SELF. Yet I am not certain of Reveling as Self. Perhaps you can add some clarification for the reader?
    To Revel "in" Self, I should be something other than the Self.
    To "Reveal" the Self --- it should be unrevealed.

    To Revel as Self ... Since I am the Self, where is the option ?
    But often we take ourselves to be non-Self ...
    for example if i say "Some times i am happy, some times sad" ... it means i have taken myself to be the mind. These simple pointers undo the wrong notion .... and one Revels as Self, effortlessly, since one is already the Self.

    Either way will work... Yet to me the Self is revealed, but not at 100% clarity.


    "To me Self is Revealed" ... who is this "me" ? Its Mind -- and you are not the Mind! Who feels there is lack of clarity ? Mind ! You are not the mind !


    We are nothing but the Self, so to reveal it suggests there is another Self and this is not possible ( so says ramaṅa mahaṛṣi ).
    Yes. We are ever the Self --- and infact Self is ever revealed. But unfortunately we take ourselves to be something else.

    In actuality ... Truth is not revealed , wrong notions are rejected ! Truth is self Evident.

    It is like the story of 10 men who cross a river. After crossing the river one of them counts the rest, leaving himself out and concludes that there are only 9. So now ... they are in deep trouble, one of their friends seem to have drowned in the river! And then .... one person comes and says , please stand in a line as i count .... and he takes a stick and hits on each person's head. "As I hit, utter out your count" ... and so when he goes on to hit the last person ... he says "Ten"! And there is great relief.

    The 10th person was ever Revealed... but to the one who "does not see him" ... the ignorance can be removed by someone who has the vision of the Truth presented by the Scriptures.

    so there is nothing new to be revealed is from one stand point - the stand point of the one who "Sees Himself" [infact to say sees himself is also incorrect ... but words are limited]....




    Love!
    Silence
    Come up, O Lions, and shake off the delusion that you are a sheep

  8. #8

    Re: Reveling as Self


    Q: I know that listening to the Guru and believing his words is important. When he says, 'You are the Self. The world is not real," and so on, I can accept that what he says is true, but my belief in the truth of those words does not seem to make it my experience.

    Annamalai Swami:
    You must believe the Guru and you must also believe your own experience because the Guru is not telling you to add another belief to your mind. He is instead telling you to look at your own experience of yourself, and in doing so, disregard everything else.

    There is a story that Ram Tirtha used to tell. A man who was a little mad lived in a small village with his wife. His friends liked to tease him and make fun of him because they all thought he was stupid.

    One day, one of them said, 'We have some bad news for you. Your wife has become a widow.'

    He believed them and started crying out in grief, 'My wife has become a widow! My wife has become a widow!'

    Some of the people he passed on the street laughed at him and said, 'Why are you mourning? You are very much alive. How can your wife be a widow if you yourself are alive to complain about it?'

    'My closest friends have told me this,' he replied, 'and I trust them. They are very reliable people. If they are saying that my wife has become a widow, it must be true.'

    We would think that a man who behaved like this was utterly stupid because he chose to believe the words of others instead of his own experience. But are we any better? We believe, on the basis of indirect information provided by the senses, that we are the body. The experience of 'I am', of the Self, is present in all of us, but when the mischievous senses gang up on us and try to make us believe something that is patently untrue, we believe them and ignore our direct experience.

    Then we grieve about our state, lamenting, 'I am bound; I am unenlightened; I am not free'.

    And even when the Guru comes along and says, 'You are the Self. You are free. Why do you insist on believing this misinformation that the mischievous senses are giving you?' still you do not believe the truth.

    You tell him, "The senses have always given me reliable information in the past. I have learned to trust them. What they tell me must be true.'

    And so you go on grieving and complaining, even when your direct experience and the words of the Guru agree with each other and reveal the truth.

    ~ Annamalai Swami, Final Talks, edited by David Godman
    Come up, O Lions, and shake off the delusion that you are a sheep

  9. #9

    Re: Reveling as Self


    Q: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If this is so, why cant I see the Self clearly ? If this is so, why can't I see the Self clearly ?
    Why is it hidden from me ?

    AS: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You have the idea that the Self is something that you see or experience . This is not so. The Self is the Awareness or consciousness in which the seeing and the experiencing take place.
    Even if you don't see the Self, the Self is still there. Bhagavan some times remarked humorously: "People just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they sau , ' I have seen the paper'. But really they haven't seen the paper , they have only seen the letters without the paper, but people always forget the paper while they are reading the words "

    Bhagavan would then use this analogy to show that while people see the names and forms that appear on the screen of consciousness, they ignore the screen itself. With this kind of partial vision its easy to come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and separate from the peron who sees them. If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead of the forms that appear in it, they would realize that all forms are just appearances which manifest within the one invisible consciousness.

    That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can never see it because its not something that is separate from you.

    Annamalai Swami -- Living by the words of Bhagavan.
    Come up, O Lions, and shake off the delusion that you are a sheep

  10. #10
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    Re: Reveling as Self

    Good thread and good postings !

    OM
    "Om Namo Bhagvate Vaasudevaye"

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