"Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us further from God and nearer to the dust." T.S Eliot.

YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR BODY – Shri Bhagavan

YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR BODY – Shri Bhagavan
Does digestion system needs any guidance from us to function? Heart beats on its own without any interference from us.Similarly all other organs functions automatically without being helped by what we call “ Me”, “I” . So how can we say that this body is “mine” when everything is natural, automatic. We may have certain choice of food and may over it but the body is intelligence enough to reject what is not needed by it in the form of excreta, even that excretory process is also automatic. We may dislike something and resist ourselves from looking at it but brain records it and reflects as dream. Everything is automatic. So we play a very nominal role in the functioning of the body.
There is no such thing as individual body; body is a chemical process and the whole nature is involved in it. We need oxygen that comes from plants or nature , heart pumps the oxygen throughout the body . So how can we separate the body from the whole of the nature and create and independent entity as “My body”. The whole nature is a process and body is a part of it, is not the body made up of same elements that the soil made up of with variations in the percentage of element that is presents in both. As Shri Bhagavan says “ We are moving clay endowed with intelligence.” Even UG.Krishnamurti said that body is reshuffled form of atoms and death is reshuffling of atoms. So the whole nature is one process and there is no dual existence there.

IS THIS WORLD AN ILLUSION

IS THIS WORLD AN ILLUSION
We are familiar with the famous saying of Shankara Acharya; Bramha satya jagat mithya i.e Bramhan alone is real and that this world is an illusion or unreal. But on what basis we can say that this universe is unreal and how can we deny our experience of this universe as something real and substancial. Gaudapada in His karika of Mandukya Upanishad has also emphasized on the illusoriness of this universe as we experience it .Ramana Mharishi says "There is in reality no change, no creation." They have never said that this world is transitory or empirical but as non – existent, not that it exists but short lived but it does not exists at all, has never comes into existence – Ajata, unborn. The classical example they used is the superimposition of snake on the rope. Actually there is no snake but just a rope . We perceive that rope as a snake, on knowing that it is just a rope, we realize that snake never existed but was projection of our mind. Same way this world is just a projection of our mind.
Let us de – mystify and study this concept ( though it is not a concept ) from non spiritual point of view. Let us first consider how we experience this world, this universe and how we experience ourselves as an entity, unless there is a centre there cannot be any circumference, so we have to know how this centre, “ I ” comes into existence, then we will go into the question of the illusoriness of the universe that we experience from this centre.
Say you are looking at the tree, so there is an observer, thing observed ( tree ) and the process of observation. Shri Bhagavan says that this trifurcation is caused by the mind. You can be conscious of the tree only when you recognize it as a tree. Recognition is thought and thought is memeory. Not that the tree is nonexistent but is there any way you can be conscious of its existence other than the use of knowledge you have of it ( that it is a tree ). When that memory is not in operation the physical eyes cannot separate itself from what it is looking at.
“ Na shuklam na krishnam na raktam na pitam
Na kubjam na peenam na hrasvaam na dheergham
Aroopam tatha jyotir akara katvat
Tadeko vashistha shiva kevaloham “ ( Dashasloki )
Aroopam tatha jyotir akara katvat Tadeko vashistha shiva kevaloham the light is falling on the object and the object is being perceived, the object is reflected on the retina. But this biological process is an unitary movement, it does not creates duality of observer and observed, so when does this space comes in, it comes in only when memory, knowledge or thought that it is a tree comes out, so thought is space not that it creates space, no thought no space. Thought is memory what says that it is tree, physical eyes does not says that it is a tree, so we are projecting our ideas on what we are looking at. That’s why even Kant said that there is no way of experiencing reality of anything directly. So where is the observer and the thing observed, it is only in our consciousness ( totality of thought or memory )
Chittam spanditam, grahya - grahakavat
Chittam nirvisayam nityam asangam, tena kriti tam. ( Mnadukya Upanishad ) This duality of subject and object is created by the vibration of thought.
Same way other sensory organs are also functioning, sense of touch, sense of smell, sense of listening, sense of taste – sense of touch never says any thing as hard or soft, the sensation and the one who is sensing is one, when we recognize a particular sensation as hard ( through memory ), the duality; perceiver and the perceived comes into existence. Similarly the listening mechanism cannot separate it self from the noise or sound, the separation occurs only when we the memory or the knowledge comes and captures the sound as rustling of leaves.
This flow of memory, thought or knowledge that translate sensory inputs ( tree, hard or soft, rustling of leaves ); coordinates between various sensory inputs ( coordinated by thoughts ), creates the self the “ I “, thus self consciousness is born. Self consciousness is nothing but superficial built up of memories.
Once this flow of thoughts comes to a stop, the very centre, the “ I “ from where we experience everything comes to an end. Once the centre dissolves the circumference also vanishes. In dissolution of mind, mind which, with its categories of time, space, and causation has created this universe also disappears." Look, "you" and "I" have never existed. It is sheer nonsense to consider oneself as having a family or caste." - Avaduta Gita
“ When there is duality, as it were, then one smells something, one sees something, one hears something, one speaks something, one tastes something, one knows something…But when mind dissolves, duality ceases, then what should one smell and through what, what should one hear and through what , what should one see and through what, what should one know and through what, what should one thinks and through what” ( Brhadaranyaka Upanishad ) The space between- the knower , the known and the process of knowing, one who is smelling , the object of smell and the process of smelling, listener, listened and the process of listening, observer, the observed and the observation vanishes and the world disappears, what is this universe after all, it is translation of sensory inputs through the help of thought and then coordinating these knowledge or thoughts ( thought, knowledge and memory is same thing ), if that process of coordination stops, surely the world disappears."There is no creation in the state of Realization. When one sees the world, one does not see one's self. When one sees the Self the world is not seen. So see the Self and realize that there has been no creation. " - Ramana Maharishi
Gaudapada declared "There is no dissolution, no birth, none in bondage and none aspiring for wisdom, no seeker of liberation and none liberated. This is the Absolute Truth....From the standpoint of the Self the world does not exist; nor does it exist as independent, neither differentiated nor non-differentiated. This is what the wise know...This duality in whatever form, both the moving and the unmoving, is mind-perceived. For when the mind ceases to be mind, the duality is not perceived at all. "
"All things are empty,They have no beginning and no end,They are faultless and not faultless,They are not perfect and not imperfect,In this emptiness, there is no form,No perception, no names, No concepts, no knowledge,There is no decay, nor death,There are no Four Noble Truths,No suffering, no origin of suffering,No cessation of suffering,And no path to the cessation of suffering,There is no knowledge of Nirvana,No obtaining it and no not obtaining it." - Zen. shri Bhagavan also says the same thing " your self is only a concept", it does not exists then whatever we experience from this centre is bound to be an illusion.

Fear

FEAR
Bhagavan says that You are fear, there is no body who is afraid of something but the very sense of individual existence is fear. There is no individual there and the very demand on our part to be an individual is born out of fear and what sustain that sense of individual exixtence is fear.
Since there is no individual there and it is just artificially built up, it is always disintegrating and to maintain that individual consciousness we need to make it secure that it is very much there. Every time we experience rejection, we experience not being loved, not being given attention or failure that illusory self get threatened, it is disintegrating that is why there is constant self defense on our part. That defense, this defensive mechanism is fear. As long as there is self ( feeling of separate existence ) there will be fear, we can talk of positive thinking but thinking itself is fear, it is self defensive by its nature, as Bhagavan says, it is another trick of mind for its continued security so any approach born out of thinking is going to sustain that fear. Life of self is like a boxing game in a boxing ring, defending ourselves of the next blow that might come at any time.
As Bhagavan says we are not actually facing the fear but running away from it and that running away is what we call fear. We escape through gimmicks like positive thinking, various techniques of developing self confidence but one who is trying to think positive is fear not that there is somebody who is in fear but what is there is just the fear. The end of self is the end of fear.

THERE ARE NO FACTS BUT ONLY PERCEPTIONS

THERE ARE NO FACTS BUT ONLY PERCEPTIONS
This is one of the most profound sutra given by Sri Bhagavan. If we could even intellectually grasp this, we would find ourselves awakened into whole new way of experiencing; the way we experience ourselves as an entity and the way we experience the world around.
How do we experience ourselves ( as an entity ) and the world around us – only through interpreting the sensory inputs; seeing, listening, touching, smelling, and tasting. Say we saw something, a tree for example but the physical eyes are not saying it a tree, the knowledge we have of it comes and says it’s a tree, we listen something but the listening mechanism does not for any reason translate the sound as English or Bengali language again the knowledge that has been put into us has to come into operation to identify a particular sound, it may be English language or barking of a dog. Similarly the sense of touch does not interpret anything as hard or soft, the sense of taste does not recognize a particular taste as sweet, the smelling mechanism works the same way. So we constantly has to translate and fit all our sensory activities within the framework of our knowledge, but we have never question the basis of this knowledge, what says that something is hard? As termed in Bramha sutra this is superimposition; physical eyes does not says that it is looking at the sky and the sky is blue. So what is the fact, everything is perception and perception is nothing but memory; we have been told that the sky is blue and every time we look at the sky we repeat that the sky is blue. Mind is nothing but the flow of memory , we construct the superstructure of these memories that we call perceptions. Say you look at a beautiful woman, first of all eyes does not say that what are you looking at is a woman so memory has to come into operation, then the knowledge of beauty, what we have been made to belief as beautiful has to come into operation. Then we say that somebody is beautiful. There is no such thing as beautiful or ugly, these are just concepts based on definition given to us. So all our appreciations are not really our own choice but influenced.
Now what if this constant use of memory comes to a stop, certainly we cannot stop it, the very entity that we call '' I '' comes to an end. As Sri Bhagavan always says the duality of experience r and experienced is due to mind and mind is memory. If memory comes to an end, the experienced along with the experiencer will come to an end and what will be there is something which cannot be explained.
To quote Ramana Maharishi “There is no creation in the state of Realization. When one sees the world, one does not see one's self. When one sees the Self the world is not seen. So see the Self and realize that there has been no creation.” In Mandukya Karika Gaudapada says the very same thing “This duality in whatever form, both the moving and the unmoving, is mind-perceived. For when the mind ceases to be mind, the duality is not perceived at all.” We can conclude that “nothing is born and nothing is perceived. There is neither falsity nor reality. This is some indescribable unborn entity which is spread.” - Yogavashistha

ONENESS HEALINGS

The "Oneness Blessing" is a transfer of energy thats sole purpose is to allow the receiver to experience oneness.The purpose of the Oneness Blessing is to help people move into a higher state of consciousness. The ultimate goal being that the individual should experience oneness with god/universe all of the time. [However, if one has an intention for something in their life that is desired or needed the Oneness Blessing will take on that intention as well.] The Oneness Blessing is secular, and its purpose is to transform man kind into a higher state of consciousness. People of all cultures, religions and countries are welcome to try this energy transmission. People are encouraged to connect with the divine in the aspect of their choice while receiving the transmission (christ, buddha, allah, yahweh, universal consciousness or just light). It doesnt matter what one chooses to believe in. The Oneness Blessing does not descriminate. People have reported being more connected to their own religion or the divine both during and after the blessing. in fact some people feel the presence and/or see and hear the divine speak to them from there heart. Many devout Christians have seen the face of Jesus and felt his presence in their heart during the blessing, while other have reported seeing paul the apostle. There are many like experiences, however this is not the purpose of the blessing. The main purpose of the oneness blessing is to move people into a higher state of consciousness and give people the ability to pass this on to others.
For details - http://www.onenessblessings.info/

Awareness

Awareness is neither an ideal to be pursued nor a concept to be understood. It is not something that can be grasped through philosophical understanding. It is a simple seeing of whatever is there without imposing frameworks or ideologies!! - Krishnaraj

Nothing comes into existence.......

“ Nothing comes and nothing goes out of existence and consequently all existence is co – produced and consequently all things are empty….” – Sri Bhagavan.
Bhagavan in this sutra is speaking about the ultimate Oneness. That no such thing as observer and observed exists. What causes this duality is mind. Everything is connected and co-exists, there is no separate existence of anything.
Let us try to understand this profound sutra of Sri Bhagavan in the light of Upanishad . Mandukya Upanishad speaks about ajativad, nothing whatsoever is born. Like in dreams, the creatures that the seer of the dream observes as existing in all ten directions is merely objects of perception or projections of mind to the consciousness of the experiencer of dream,there is no existence of those objects independent of his consciousness. Similarly objects of perception of the man in waking state also has no independent existence of its own, separate or independent of his consciousness, since they are perceived through the consciousness , just like the creatures perceived through the consciousness by the man in dream.
As in dream the consciousness vibrates as though have duality, so in the waking state the consciousness vibrates as though having dual facets.

This Diwali let us pray to our beloved Amma - Bhagavan to awaken us in that atate of abosolute oneness.

Asato ma sat gamaya

Tamaso ma jyotirga maya

Mrityur ma amritanga maya

Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi...

My best wishes for Diwali to all. We celebrate Diwali as Kaali puja, let us pray to our Divine Mother Amma as Ma Kaali.


"Atha Kalimantraye SadyovaksiddhiprapyivanAravitairyah Sarvestam Prapnuvanti Jana Bhuvih"
"Savaruhaammahabhimaghoradanshtram Hasanmukhim Chaturbhujamkhadagmundavarabhayakaram ShivamMundamaladharamdevi LolajihvandigambaramEvam Sanchintayetkalim Shamasanalayavsinim"
"Kreem Kreem Kreem Hreem Hreem Hoom Hoom Dakshine KalikeKreem Kreem Kreem Hreem Hreem Hoom Hoom Swaha"