Think again

It is fundamental to recognise that we have been taught not to trust ourselves...

We have been taught to create a split between 'me' and 'Life'... between 'me' and 'Source'...

The basis of this split is an idea. It is an idea that we picked up by observing all the 'separate-feeling' people around us - their actions, their words, their interests, their fears...

We have been taught to deny the peace that is right here in the Silence, between the thoughts, behind the thoughts, before, after and even during the thoughts... We have been taught to ignore this Witness that is Pure Consciousness... that is always Here.

No-thing is in the way of Understanding. No-thing needs to be removed or added. It's just that idea of separation that distracts us...

It's JUST an idea.

It's not important. It doesn't justify all that effort that we make to find wholeness again.

It's just an idea.

'Think again' ... or not.

It's just an idea.

"Even the means of doing actions should be pure"

"It is true that we are not bound and that the real Self has no bondage. It is true that you will eventually go back to your Source.

But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them, you will have to face the consequences of such sins.... Whatever is done lovingly, with righteous purity and with peace of mind, is a good action. Everything which is done with the stain of desire and with agitation filling the mind is classified as a bad action...

Therefore even the means of doing actions should be pure.... What is the use of merely saying with your lips, 'I am free'?"

- Ramana Maharshi

'Individual' truth and 'Universal' Truth. Conditioned mind and Unconditioned Consciousness

As individuals - as a window for consciousness - we are each uniquely positioned in space and time...

But in essence, at the roots of 'our' Being, we are consciousness itself - undifferentiated and unconditioned.

The deepest mystical revelations and spiritual insights amount to nothing more than this.

Self-realisation is a living knowledge of one's essence - not abstract or theoretical - inherently embodying the infinite creative potential as our very Presence.

Theoretical self-knowledge tends to inhibit inspired action - whereas, on the contrary, the awakened Presence is ever flowing with it.

Words cannot contain these truths... but inspired poetry can evoke them...

The 'Truth of our Essence' is world-shattering - it destroys all our beliefs about reality which are based on our sense of 'separate self'.

The Freedom that is sought while there is a constricted experience of separative-existence cannot be found by trying to 'understand' spiritual teachings. There is nothing the mind can do to alleviate this primordial suffering of existence.

But the struggle of the mind to find peace can be seen for what it is, and in that moment there is a lightning bolt of understanding that destroys the fixation on 'separativeness'.

The struggle of the mind to find peace is a symptom of the negation of our essence. While this negation continues the mind will not grasp spiritual truth - it will either reject it or intellectualise it.

There is no freedom found through the mind. There is Freedom in 'seeing through' the mind.

The play of mind is the basis of ignorance (about our essence).

Do not struggle with the mind!

This is mind's struggle! It belongs to the mind.

If you sincerely wish for and are open to Freedom, you must renounce this struggle.

It is not the mind's function to grasp 'reality'.

The mind's function/essence is to interpret and organise experience from an 'individual' (i.e. 'separate') perspective.

But renounce this struggle with mind.

It is not mind that is the problem. It is attachment to 'mind-ness' that brings the feeling of psychological or spiritual bondage.

Let mind be.

Awareness is vast enough to swallow mind with no effort at all.

New Spiritual Coaching blog

http://spiritualcoachingwithpeter.blogspot.com/

Shibendu Lahiri in Portugal - April 2010

Shibendu Lahiri at Quinta dos Milagres, Lagos.

Shibendu Lahiri is giving a lecture tomorrow night (16th April 2010) in Lisbon at 9pm, and Kriya Yoga initiations over the weekend and then a retreat in Fátima.

You can also find information about this and his upcoming events (UK, Germany, India, USA, etc.) at:
www.kriyayogalahiri.com/htmluk/program.htm

He is a true Advaita master - a voice for the Infinite.
His teaching is not 'comforting', it is profoundly disarming and dissolves the 'I'-centred illusion of separation...
If you meet him or 'his' teaching, prepare to be 'blasted'.

o

Spiritual Coaching in Sintra

Sintra is one of the most picturesque and magical places on this planet.

Walk and meditate in the forests, visit initiatic gardens and labyrinths, have a picnic on the cliffs looking over the Atlantic, savour the local foods and unique sweets, visit organic farms, or learn to surf, and each day receive an hour (or more) of coaching while soaking in the magic of Sintra.

Now is the time. What better place to unwind and to open your Self?

Coaching with Peter Littlejohn Cook

information:

Tel: +351 967 045 411

panmandala@gmail.com

'Purification'

'Purification' is a shedding of what is not necessary and an alignment with/recognition of the flow of life. It is not a process of gaining favour with (the) 'Supreme Being'.

It is a release of self-contraction and self-doubt. It is dropping the negation of the source.

Creation is taking place now. Recognising this, one recognises the ever-present Source.

When your 'work' becomes play and your play becomes 'worship'... 'Dharma Kriya' - the real 'Karma Yoga' - Action that Liberates

"A real creator is not a creator at all. A real creator becomes instrumental; he is possessed of the great forces. Wild forces of God possess him, wild seas and skies of God possess him. He becomes a mouthpiece. He utters, but the words are not his. He paints, but the colours are not his. He sings, but the sounds are not his. He dances, but he dances as if possessed — somebody else dancing through him.
... The question is, if your ego disappears into meditation, what will happen to your work? If it is a profession, it will disappear, and it is good that it disappears. Nobody should be a professional. Your work should be your love; otherwise the work becomes destructive. Then somehow you drag it and your whole life becomes dull. Your whole life becomes empty in a negative sense, unfulfilled. You are doing something which you never wanted to do in the first place. It is violent. It is suicidal — you are killing yourself slowly, poisoning your own system. Nobody should be a professional. Your work should be your love; it should be your prayer. It should be your religion, not your profession.
There should be a passion flowing between you and your work. When you have really found your vocation, it is a love affair. It is not that you have to do it. It is not that you have to force yourself to do it. Suddenly, you do it in a totally different way which you had not known before. Your steps have a different dance, your heart goes on humming. Your whole system functions for the first time at the optimum. It is a fulfilment. Through it you will find your being — it will become a mirror; it will reflect you. Whatsoever it is — a small thing.
It is not a question that only great things become vocations, no. A small thing. You may be making toys for children, or making shoes, or weaving cloth — or whatsoever.
It doesn't matter what it is, but if you love it, if you have fallen in love with it; if you are flowing with no reservation, if you are not withholding yourself, if you are not dragging — dancingly moving into it— it will cleanse you, it will purify you. Your thinking, by and by, will disappear. It will be a silent music and, by and by, you will feel that it is not only work, it is your being. Each step fulfilled, something in you flowers.
And richest is the man who has found his vocation. And richest is the man who starts feeling a fulfilment through his work. Then the whole life becomes a worship.
Work should be a worship, but that's possible only when your being starts to be more meditative. Through meditation, you will gather courage. Through meditation, you will gather courage to throw the profession and to move towards the vocation."
— Osho (Yoga: the Science of Living)

The 'Energy of Understanding'*

Whether information be the conclusion of experts, a declaration of the pope, or the revelation of angels, prophets, extra-terrestrials, ascended masters, the 'Higher Self', a guru, or God, it is not the source of information and its reputation that determines whether something is valuable or true...

It is always our understanding alone that determines whether information, or 'wisdom' or 'spiritual teachings' are 'valuable' and 'true'.

No authority can substitute our own understanding.

When we allow ourselves to be led by an authority figure or an authoritarian belief system (or 'dogma'), we may believe that we are on a Spiritual path, but really we are simply denying our 'God-given' capacity for deep, individual, alignment with Life.

A Spiritual practice - a 'spiritual life' - is supposed to bring out the best in us, to help reveal the infinite richness of our Divine heritage as Spiritual Beings. (The words 'Divine' and 'Spiritual' can be substituted with 'Original', 'Real', or 'unconditioned' if we do not identify with spiritual/religious terminology.)

If we follow an 'authority' instead of being guided by our own understanding, we are denying our heritage - our roots.

To be deeply rooted/grounded, is to be guided by our understanding - not 'intellectual understanding', but the 'energy of understanding' - the Living Intelligence, the Creative Source.

The essence of Spiritual teachings has usually been Love - God's Love (or 'Life's Love') of humanity, and Love of each other... the 'Brotherhood of humanity'.

If a teaching, even one that is given by 'God', is not understood it is, at best, useless. In many cases, it is actually dangerous because of the fervour with which it will be (mis)applied.

A tradition that emphasises faith in a teaching or doctrine and affiliation with a group, if it leads to alienation of other groups or individuals, will tend towards disrespect of those who are outside of the group (which tends to lead sooner or later to violent abuse).

This is why religion has developed such a bad reputation, especially the religions 'of the Book' (which refers to Christianity, Judaism and Islam).


Understanding is what distinguishes wisdom from dogma.

It is only in our understanding that Spirituality can be truly alive and real.

But ultimately even 'understanding' becomes irrelevant as the sense of 'I' dissolves in the Graceful flow of Life.

*'The Energy of Understanding' is an expression frequently used by Shibendu Lahiri in his spiritual discourses.

o

Walk, picnic, meditation, music and sacred chant in the Sintra countryside - Saturday, 10th of April, 2010

Walk, picnic, meditation, music and sacred chant in the Sintra countryside

Retiro na Quinta da Enxara - 'Pára.... observa o Silêncio.... - ' com Atmananda e Peter Littlejohn Cook

http://prematmananda.wordpress.com/retirosworkshops/

The 'secret' of Enlightenment/Self-Realisation

"Enlightenment is a secret that very few people know about and even fewer people understand.

Why is it a secret? Because Enlightenment does not exist in time. That's why it's a secret and that's why it will always be a secret. Enlightenment is a vision that cannot be held or grasped in any way.

... It's a fire that a person is either going to jump into or run away from. This fire burns beyond the mind. No-time is the place where this secret abides. Realise that and you realise the Self you are when there's no mind and no time. Realise that, and cling to that alone as your own Self."

- Andrew Cohen

o

"The Heart is another name for the Reality, and it is neither inside nor outside the body. There can be no in and out for it, since It alone is."

- Ramana Maharshi

o

Presence

Being born now

as All

Not reborn as 'my''self',

but as no-thing...

No-body,

Yet, all things, all selves...

Embodying all things

and the space between them...

Yet utterly free of time

and space

Wearing them like a frown,

a smile

And releasing them like an old skin,

or a sigh.

I am nothing

I am freedom

Just like you

o

"When you have come to your innermost core you have come to the innermost core of existence itself."

- Osho

"The sum total of all minds in the Univerese is one."

- Erwin Schrödinger

How will the mind become quiescent?

"By the inquiry 'Who am I?'.
The thought 'Who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts,
and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre,
it will itself in the end get destroyed.
Then, there will arise Self-Realization."

- Ramana Maharshi

o

Yoga Sadhana

"The amount of happiness in life is proportional to our discipline ('sadhana')."

- Siddha dictum

"Discipline ('Sadhana') in the context of yoga, is simply to remember who we are, and to let go of what we are not."

- M.G. Sachidananda

o

'Causeless' awakening

"Of course, the vast majority of people who have an experience of awakening have had some energy, some yearning, to awaken to a deeper sense of reality. That’s true, but the problem is, anytime we say “this” is necessary or “that” is necessary, there will always be examples to the contrary. Awakening is a mystery. There is no direct cause and effect, really. It would be nice if there were, but there really isn’t a direct cause and effect."

- Adyashanti

d

'karma' is unconscious action (unconscious creation)

Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention - What you are (at present) is the result of inattention and what you will become, will be the fruit of attention.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

o

Nothing is required to 'achieve' Liberation or to 'become' Liberated.

It is the divided and divisive mind that makes an effort. The best it can do is place one higher on an imaginary ladder of 'steps to realisation' – but this is just self-delusion – just a way to go on restricting the definition of one's self – and it is precisely this – the definition – the delineation of one's self – that is ignorance (ignore-ance) of one's Liberated nature – one's Liberated Being.

Realisation of the Self – Realisation of the True Nature of the Self arises by all else falling away – including the search for, or striving for, the attainment of our true nature.
The one who seeks is engaged in a futile activity as long as there is any striving. The seeker does not become a Liberated being. The seeker dissolves like a dream upon awakening, and what remains is not 'a Liberated Being' – but 'Liberated Beingness'.

"There is no such thing as 'Enlightenment'.

Understanding this is Enlightenment itself."

"All paths lead to unreality."

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

o

o

Be aware of being conscious and seek the source of consciousness - that is all.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

o

o
“Anything you want to ask a teacher, ask yourself,
and wait for the answer in silence.”
-Byron Katie
o

o
“You move totally away from reality
when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”
- Byron Katie
o

o
"Who would you be without your story?
You never know until you inquire.
There is no story that is you or that leads to you.
Every story leads away from you.
Turn it around; undo it.
You are what exists before all stories.
You are what remains when the story is understood. "
- Byron Katie
o

o
“Thoughts are just what is.
They appear. They’re innocent. They’re not personal.
They’re like the breeze or the leaves on the trees or the raindrops falling.
Thoughts arise like that, and we can make friends with them.
Would you argue with a raindrop?”
- Byron Katie
o

o
“So, how do you get back to heaven?
To begin with, just notice the thoughts that take you away from it.
You don’t have to believe everything your thoughts tell you.
Just become familiar with the particular thoughts you use
to deprive yourself of happiness.
It may seem strange at first to get to know yourself in this way,
but becoming familiar with your stressful thoughts
will show you the way home to everything you need.”
- Byron Katie
o

The origin of suffering

"All suffering comes from believing our thoughts."
- Byron Katie
o