Incredible the animal that first dreamed of another animal. —Carlos Fuentes

.

You know, all mystics - Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion - are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.


—Anthony de Mello

Your thinking that you have to make an effort to get rid of this dream of the waking state, and your making efforts to attain jnana (realization of Self) or real awakening, are all parts of the dream.


—Ramana Maharshi

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oceanoflove

... his little lips!
.

Love, and do what you like! —Saint Augustine

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It is every intelligent man's experience ... wrong-doing recoils on the doer sooner or later. Why is this so?
Because the Self is one in all.

When seeing others you are only seeing yourself in their shapes.

'Love they neighbor as thyself' means that you should love him because he is your Self.


—Ramana Maharshi
S. S. Cohen, 15th August, 1948

...

It’s rigged — everything, in your favor.
So there is nothing to worry about.

Is there some position you want,
some office, some acclaim, some
award, some con, some lover,
maybe two, maybe three, maybe four
— all at once,

maybe a relationship
with
God?

I know there is a gold mine in you, and when you find it
the wonderment of the earth’s gifts
you will lay aside
as naturally as does
a child with a
doll.

But, dear, how sweet you look to me kissing the unreal:
comfort, fulfill yourself,
in any way possible — do that until
you ache, until you ache,

then come to me
again.


 —Rumi

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divine magnetism

 There is something in personal love, caresses,
and the magnetic flood of sympathy and friendship, that does,
in its way, more good than all the medicine in the world.
 
—Walt Whitman



.

The Self is like a powerful magnet within us. It draws us gradually to itself, though we imagine we are going to It of our own accord: when we are near enough, It puts an end to our activities, makes us still, and then swallows up our personal current, thus killing our wrong personality. It overwhelms the intellect and over floods the whole being. 

We think we are meditating upon It and developing towards It, whereas the truth is that we are iron filings and It is the Atman-magnet that is pulling us towards Itself. Thus the process of finding the Self is a form of Divine magnetism.


—Sri Ramana Maharshi

...

... everything can have an effect on us. And all things affect us from a distance, the near as well as the remote things, nothing touches us; everything reaches us across divisions. And just as the most remote stars cannot enter us, the ring on my hand cannot do so either: everything that reaches us can do so only the way a magnet summons and aligns the forces in some susceptible object; in this way, all things can effect a new alignment within us. And in view of this insight, do proximity and distance not simply vanish?

—Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters on Life

...

The chooser's happiness lies in his congruence with the chosen,

The peace of iron filings, obedient to the forces of the magnetic field.

Calm is the soul that is emptied of all self,

In the eternal moment of co-inherence.

A happiness within you - but not yours.

—Dag Hammarskjöld

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grace(ful

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Grace is always present. You imagine it is something somewhere high in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart, and the moment you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its Source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you.

—Ramana Maharshi

.

Grace is within you. If it were external, it would be useless. —Ramana Maharshi

.

You think that you are the body or that you are the mind. But there are occasions when you are free from both.

For example in deep slumber, you create a body and a world in your dream. That represents your mental activities. In your waking state you think that you are the body and then the idea of forest and the rest arise.

Now, consider the situation. You are an unchanging and continuous being who remains in all these states which are constantly changing and therefore transient. But you are always there. It follows that these fleeting objects are mere phenomena which appear on your being like pictures which move across a screen. The screen does not move when the picture moves. Similarly, you do not move from where you are even when the body leaves the home and mixes in society.

Your body, the society, the forest and the ways are all in you; you are not in them. You are the body also but not this body only. If you remain as your pure Self, the body and its movements need not affect you.

...

You are neck-deep in water and yet cry for water.

It is as good as saying that one neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirsty, or that water feels thirsty.

Grace is always there.

—Sri Ramana Maharshi

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form(ation

. 

When you look at anything, it is the ultimate you see, but you imagine that you see a cloud or a tree. 

Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realise that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear. 

Even the sense of ‘I am’ is composed of the pure light and the sense of being. The ‘I’ is there even without the ‘am’. So is the pure light there whether you say ‘I’ or not. Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience — that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else.

—Ramana Maharshi

...

If you are stone, be magnetic;

if a plant, be sensitive;

if you are human, be love.

—Victor Hugo

Les Miserables

.

Only 

That Illumined 

One 

Who keeps 

Seducing the formless into form 

Had the charm to win my 

Heart. 

Only a Perfect One 

Who is always 

Laughing at the word 

Two 

Can make you know 

Of 

Love.

—Hafiz

.
Paul Slyer photo

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will(power

.

By whatever path you go, you will have to lose yourself in the One.

Surrender is complete only when you reach the stage ‘Thou art all’ and ‘Thy will be done’.


—Ramana Maharshi

...

Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own
and says, “My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body.”

Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate.

Learn how it happens that one watches without willing,
rests without willing, becomes angry without willing,
loves without willing.


—Hippolytus of Rome

.

no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible —Stanisław Jerzy Lec

 .

How surely gravity's law, strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it toward
the heart of the world.

Each thing - each stone, blossom, child - is held in place.

Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we belong to

for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered to earth's intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making

and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again to learn from the things,

because they are in God's heart; they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:

to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even a bird must do that before he can fly.


—Rainer Maria Rilke
what the things can teach us
Anita Barrows/Joanna Macy translation

...

Mr. B.C. Das, the Physics Lecturer, asked about free will and destiny. 

Ramana Maharshi: Whose will is it? ‘It is mine’ you may say. You are beyond will and fate. Abide as that and you will transcend them both. That is the meaning of conquering destiny by will. Fate can be conquered. 

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi

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look at that face ...

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Be aware that the two paths of jnana (knowledge) and bhakti (devotion) are inseparably related. Therefore, without separating one from the other through the delusion that they are different, practice both simultaneously and harmoniously in your heart.

–Sri Ramana Maharshi

...

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to ocean 
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.


—Robert Frost

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you know ...

.

What is called the world is only thought.

–Ramana Maharshi

...

You are not what you think yourself to be, I assure you.

The image you have of yourself is made up from memories and is purely accidental.


—Nisargadatta Maharaj

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revelation

.

We are so engrossed with the objects or appearances revealed by the light, that we pay no attention to the light. In the waking or dream state in which things appear, and in the sleep state in which we see nothing, there is always the light of Consciousness or Self, like the hall lamp which is always burning. The thing to do is to concentrate on the seer and not on the seen, not on the objects, but on the Light which reveals them.

—Sri Ramana Maharshi

...

The light which you see outside arises from your own light. The light of the sun and the moon cannot be compared to the light of your Self.

—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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know-the-self 
.

truly

.

There is no alternative for you but to accept the world as unreal, if you are seeking the Truth and the Truth alone.


–Ramana Maharshi

.

tour(ist

.

A man goes to sleep in this hall. He dreams he has gone on a world tour, is roaming over hill and dale, forest and country, desert and sea, across various continents and after many years of weary and strenuous travel, returns to this country, reaches Tiruvannamalai, enters the ashram and walks into the hall.

Just at that moment he wakes up and finds he has not moved an inch but was sleeping where he lay down.

He has not returned after great effort to this hall, but is and always has been in the hall.

–Ramana Maharshi

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confession

.

This little finger covers the eye and prevents the whole world from being seen. 

In the same way this small mind covers the whole universe and prevents Reality from being seen.

—Ramana Maharshi

...

Sometimes I patrol the perimeter of life,

checking for holes where reality might leak in.

—Sayings of Te Toh

.

no thoughts, no world

.

What is called ‘mind’ is a wondrous power residing in the Self.
It causes all thoughts to arise.
Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind.
Therefore, thought is the nature of mind. 

Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world.
In deep sleep there are no thoughts, and there is no world.
In the states of waking and dream, there are thoughts,
and there is a world also. 

Just as the spider emits the thread (of the web) out of itself and again withdraws it into itself, likewise the mind projects the world out of itself and again resolves it into itself.

When the mind comes out of the Self, the world appears.
Therefore, when the world appears (to be real), the Self does not appear; and when the Self appears (shines) the world does not appear. 

When one persistently inquires into the nature of the mind, the mind will end, leaving the Self (as the residue).
What is referred to as the Self is the Atman. 

The mind always exists only in dependence on something gross;
it cannot stay alone.

It is the mind that is called the subtle body or the soul (jiva).


–Sri Ramana Maharshi

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the appearance of water in a mirage

.

The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.
 

–Nisargadatta Maharaj

.

The appearance of water in a mirage persists after the fact that it is a mirage has dawned on us. So it is with the world. 

Though knowing it to be unreal, it continues to manifest - but we do not try to satisfy our thirst with the water of the mirage. 

As soon as one knows that it is a mirage, one gives it up as useless and does not run after it to get water.


–Ramana Maharshi

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brian cuttaz
.

question

.

You see various scenes passing on a cinema screen: fire seems to burn buildings to ashes; water seems to wreck ships; but the screen on which the pictures are projected remains unburnt and dry. Why? Because the pictures are unreal and the screen real.

Similarly, reflections pass through a mirror but it is not affected at all by their number or quality.

In the same way, the world is a phenomenon upon the substratum of the single Reality which is not affected by it in any way.

Reality is only One.

Talk of illusion is due only to the point of view. Change your viewpoint to that of Knowledge and you will perceive the Universe to be only Brahman. Being now immersed in the world, you see it as a real world; get beyond it and it will disappear and Reality alone will remain.


–Sri Ramana Maharshi

.

Every being cries out silently to be read differently. –Simone Weil

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nothinglikeasong
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truly

.

There is no alternative for you but to accept the world as unreal, if you are seeking the Truth and the Truth alone.


–Ramana Maharshi

.

the question

.

The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer. 

The question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.

–Ramana Maharshi

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