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.......When maya is totally inactive, that is, when the identity with the body and the mind has been dropped, there is an awareness of consciousness, of being.
When one is established in that state there is no body, no mind and no world.
These three things are just ideas which are brought into an apparent existence when maya is present and active.
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O: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If this is so, why cant 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 the consciousness in which the seeing and the experiencing take place.
Even if you don’t see the Self, the Self is still there.
Bhagavan sometimes remarked humorously: ‘People just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they say, “I have seen the paper”. But really they haven’t seen the paper, they have only seen the letters and pictures that are on it. There can be no words or pictures 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 it is easy to come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and separate from the person who sees them. If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead of the forms that appear in it, they would realise that all forms are just appearances which manifest within the one indivisible consciousness.
That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can never see it because it is not something that is separate from you.
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.......Don’t worry about whether you are making progress or not.
Just keep your attention on the Self twenty-four hours a day.
Meditation is not something that should be done in a particular position at a particular time.
It is an awareness and an attitude that must persist throughout the day.
To be effective, meditation must be continuous.
If you want to water a field you dig a channel to the field and send water continuously along it for a lengthy period of time. If you send water for only ten seconds and then stop, the water sinks into the ground even before it reaches the field.
You will not be able to reach the Self and stay there without a prolonged, continuous effort.
Each time you give up trying, or get distracted, some of your previous effort goes to waste.
Sam: just like one continuous 21 day fast as opposed to 3 day fasts several times. No result.
Continuous inhalation and exhalation are necessary for the continuance of life.
Continuous meditation is necessary for all those who want to stay in the Self.
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You divide your life up into different activities: T am eating,’ T am meditating,’ T am working,’ etc.
If you have ideas like these you are still identifying with the body.
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Get rid of all these ideas and replace them with the single thought 'I' am the Self.
Hold on to that idea and don’t let go.
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Don’t give these I-am-the-body ideas any attention.
‘I must eat now’; ‘I will go to sleep now’; ‘I will have a bath now’: all thoughts like these are I-am-the-body thoughts.
Learn to recognise them when they arise and learn to ignore them or deny them.
Stay firmly in the Self and don’t allow the mind to identify with anything that the body does.
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Mind is only a collection of thoughts and the thinker who thinks them.
The thinker is the 'I'-thought, the primal thought which rises from the Self before all others, which identifies with all other thoughts and says, ‘I am this body’.
When you have eradicated all thoughts except for the thinker himself by ceaseless enquiry or by refusing to give them any attention,
the 'I'-thought sinks into the Heart and surrenders,
leaving behind it,
only an awareness of consciousness.
This surrender will only take place when the 'I'-thought has ceased to identify with rising thoughts.
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While there are still stray thoughts which attract or evade your attention, the T-thought will always be directing its attention outwards rather than inwards.
The purpose of self-enquiry is to make the 'I'-thought move inwards, towards the Self.
This will happen automatically as soon as you cease to be interested in any of your rising thoughts.
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AS: The best mantra is 'I' am the Self. Everything is my Self. Everything is one’.
If you keep this in your mind all the time the Self will eventually reveal itself to you.
Don’t be satisfied with rituals and other kindergarten techniques.
If you are serious, head directly for the Self.
Hold onto it as tenaciously as you can and don’t let anything or anyone loosen your grip.
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AS: According to one’s prarabdha the efforts which are necessary and which have to happen will arise in one’s mind.
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AS: Manikkavachagar said in one of his songs: ‘God is not a person, nor is He any particular thing. Yet without God there is nothing because He alone is everything.’
To see one’s Self and to see this same Self in all that is, that is seeing God.
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AS: If there are breaks in his Self-awareness this means that he is not yet a dnyani
Before one becomes established in this state without any breaks, without changes, one has to contact and enjoy this state many times.
By steady meditation it finally becomes permanent.
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It is very difficult to attain Self-abidance, but once it is attained it is retained effortlessly and never lost.
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It is a little like putting a rocket into space.
A great effort and great energy are required to escape the earth’s gravitational field.
If the rocket is not going fast enough, gravity will pull it back to earth.
But once it has escaped the pull of gravity it can stay out in space quite effortlessly without falling back to earth.
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AS: Waking, dreaming and deep sleep are like a long dream happening in consciousness. If we see a dream, and are involved in that dream, all the events that we see will seem real for the duration of the dream. But when we awake, the dream disappears and we realise that nothing ever really happened except in our minds.
When you awake to real consciousness, the whole process of waking, dreaming and sleeping disappears like last night’s dream.
You immediately understand that it was never real.
Right now, because we are ignorant of the Self, we are dreaming this world and imagining that it is real.
We are so engrossed in the dream, we believe that it is the only reality.
This waking life is just a long dream which keeps our attention away from what we really are.
If you take the attitude that all the happenings in the world are dream events, your mind becomes tranquil.
It is only when you take the dream world to be real that you get agitated.
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AS: If you really believed that all life was a dream, nothing in the world would ever trouble you.
If you still have problems and worries, like not being able to see through the dream,
it means that you have still not completely ceased to identify with what temporarily appears in your consciousness.
You should enquire, ‘Who is not able to penetrate through the dream?’
The true T is not identified with the dream.
If you don’t forget your real Self, waking, dreaming and sleeping do not affect you.
The things around you are always changing, but what we really are, remains changeless.
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Pure existence, ‘I am’ without anything predicated or attached to it, is common to all.
No one can deny his own existence.
In this ‘I am’ there are no limitations, but when we wrongly identify this ‘I am’ with the body and the mind and create a limited identity for ourselves, misery begins.
Only in this human birth are the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep provided along with the sense of something that is beyond them, something that can be experienced and lived.
We see a dream, yet on waking up the dream disappears and we exist in the waking state. On going to sleep the whole world disappears. By observing these three states we come to understand that it is their nature to appear and disappear.
If we investigate the matter further by carefully scrutinising the nature of this thing called mind, we can have the direct experience that consciousness alone is what we really are.
When we cease to identify with the body and the mind we become aware that this pure consciousness is unaffected by any of the changes and events that appear to take place within it.
The only purpose of life is to learn how to abide in that consciousness.
We have to learn how to rest in turya, the fourth and primal state which is the witness of the other three states.
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Doing any form of sadhana without first understanding that the individual self is non-existent is self-indulgence.
Sam: above is a golden sentence
It is a form of spiritual entertainment in which the illusory 'I' plays games with itself.
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Saint Tayumanuvar once said, ‘Why all these maha yogas? All these yogas are maya
If you try to meditate without understanding that your real nature is Self, and Self alone,
your meditation practice will only lead you to more mental bondage.
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Bhagavan once said, ‘To keep the mind in the Self, all you have to do is remain still’.
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To realise the Self, you don’t actually have to do anything except be still.
Just give up identifying with the mind and
Hold onto the Self.
That is enough. Be still and cultivate the awareness ‘I am the Self. The Self is all’.
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What difficulties can arise from doing a simple practice like this?
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AS: ‘Who came here for help?’ Find out who that person is. Don’t automatically assume that he exists and that he needs help with his problems. If you think like this your problems will increase, not decrease.
Identifying oneself with the body and the mind results in ignorance of the Self. This is how the ego takes birth. Detaching ourselves and disengaging from the body and the mind results in the death of the ego.
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Severe punishment for believing that you , the Self , has Body and Mind:
Bhagavan once said to me:
‘The one who limits the Self by believing himself to be the body and the mind has killed his own Self.
For killing the Self he has to be punished.
The punishment is birth and death and continuous misery.’
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AS: Here and now you are already the Self.
You don’t need time to realise the Self, all you need is correct understanding.
Each moment you identify yourself with the body and the mind, you are going in the direction of ego and misery.
The moment you give up that identification, you are moving towards your real Self, towards happiness.
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69
AS:
When I say, ‘Meditate on the Self’ I am asking you 'to be the Self', not think about it.
Be aware of what remains when thoughts stop.
Be aware of the consciousness that is the origin of all your thoughts.
Be that consciousness.
Feel that that is what you really are.
If you do this you are meditating on the Self.
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But if you cannot stabilise in that consciousness because your vasanas are too strong and too active, it is beneficial to hold onto the thought ‘I am the Self; I am everything’.
If you meditate in this way you will not be cooperating with the vasanas that are blocking your Self-awareness. If you don’t cooperate with your vasanas, sooner or later they are bound to leave you.
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If this method doesn’t appeal to you, then just watch the mind with full attention. Whenever the mind wanders, become aware of it.
See how thoughts connect with each other and watch how this ghost called mind catches hold of all your thoughts and says This is my thought’.
Watch the ways of the mind without identifying with them in any way. If you give your mind your full, detached attention, you begin to understand the futility of all mental activities. Watch the mind wandering here and there, seeking out useless or unnecessary things or ideas which will ultimately only create misery for itself. Watching the mind gives us a knowledge of its inner processes.
It gives us an incentive to stay detached from all our thoughts. Ultimately, if we try hard enough, it gives us the ability to remain as consciousness, unaffected by transient thoughts.
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AS: This is the real life. All other lives are maya. Don't take the maya life to be real.
Saint Manikkavachagar once said: ‘Lord Siva gave me the boon of not being able to give reality to this maya life.’
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AS: Again, enquire, Tor whom is this difficulty?’ Don’t give reality to the very thing that is causing you all your trouble.
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AS: If you have really surrendered to the Guru you will see the Guru in all forms.
Wherever you go you will only see the Guru.
If your mind is not steady it means that your surrender is not complete.
Your Guru may take several forms. If your destiny is to go to several different places, your Guru may take the form of different saints. But even if he does there is still only one Guru because the Guru is the formless Self. You must learn to see the Guru in all things; you must learn to see the Guru everywhere.
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Tayumanuvar once asked Siva to give him a boon:
You who carry all the troubles of the world, please take all my troubles too.
Take the sense that I am the doer away from me.
You alone act.
You do everything through me.
Surrender completely and accept that everything that happens to you and the world is God’s will.
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Q: How to distinguish between acts which occur as God's will and acts which are brought about by the ego?
AS: This is very simple. When surrender is complete, everything is God.
Everything that happens is then His action. In that state there is peace, harmony and an absence of thoughts.
Until that stage is reached, all acts are by the ego.
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Q: It seems that so much time is needed to realise the Self; many lifetimes in fact. For me, realisation always seems to be an event in the distant future.
AS: You don’t need hundreds of lives to realise the Self. In fact you don’t need any time at all. Your idea of time is one of the things that is holding you in bondage. Time is one of the properties of the mind. Liberation does not come after a period of time because there is no time in the Self.
Liberation comes when you fully understand and experience that there is no one who needs liberation.
That understanding and that experience only arise when the mind and its in built ideas of time have ceased to function.
If you think about time and start to worry about how much longer it will be before you realise the Self, your attention will be on the mind and not on the Self.
You can only make progress while the mind is on the Self.
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